I understand most woman are tested around 36 weeks for GSB. I elected to not be tested as I learned while it may be present at 36 weeks it may not be present at birth and vice versa so I thought what was the point. I took the approach that if I had other risk factors during labour like waters breaking 12+ hours before, if I had a fever or a premmie delivery then I would talk with my caregiver about possibly having ABs during labour. I just figured the test wasn't going to be particularly helpful and may just raise unnecessary anxieties. Also I read minimising VEs can possibly reduce the chance of getting GSB in the first place.

On another note I think the odds of a severe reaction to penicillin in prophylactic treatment of GBS are probably rarer than stated in the article. Using only the the articles stated statistics if 10% of people are allergic means 1:10 women and then 1:5000 chance of having a reaction means 1 in 50000 women may have a severe reaction and this figure would be even higher if you take into consideration that a fair proportion of women in the developed world would already know they are allergic by adulthood and hence not use Penicillin as a treatment. This is in comparison to the stated 1 in 2000-5000 babies will be saved by Penicillin - I'm presuming they are referring to all babies not just those of women allergic to PC.

I think there is nothing wrong with using garlic as a prophylactic or treatment in the lead up to labour, wish I'd read about it before, but there is still the chance of reinfection, it still being present or infection in those that tested negative.