For many women, pregnancy goes well without any unexpected hitches, but there are others who suffer from various scares and concerns. Two such issues that can cause problems are pre-eclampsia and strep B.

 

 

Pre-eclampsia is a pregnancy condition. In its mildest form, it affects one in 10 women each year, but 50 women a year are seriously affected. It causes high blood pressure, can damage the liver, brain and placenta and may cause harm to the baby. The exact cause of pre-eclampsia is still unclear, but experts believe it involves a problem with the blood vessels in the placenta, which in turn causes high blood pressure.

 

But in the early stages there may be no symptoms at all and a pregnant woman may feel fine. This is why the routine blood pressure checks and urine tests (which check for protein) that you undergo during pregnancy antenatal care are crucial, as they can pick up the condition when it’s otherwise going unnoticed.

 

When symptoms do occur, the early symptoms include swollen ankles and swelling in the face or hands (what’s known as oedema). As swollen ankles can be a part of pregnancy anyway, it’s easy to overlook it, but if you have any sudden swelling it’s better to get it checked out than be unsure. As the condition progresses, the symptoms become more serious and include headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, sickness, confusion, shortness of breath, blurred vision and shoulder pain.

 

If pre-eclampsia is diagnosed, the treatment will aim to lower the blood pressure, through a lot of rest and drugs. This won’t cure the condition, but it will help keep it under control. An injection of magnesium sulphate may also be given, as this can halve the risk of it developing into eclampsia.

 

If it’s not treated, it could develop into a more serious condition and in some cases this can be fatal. Full-blown eclampsia can cause convulsion, kidney failure and syndrome called HELLP, where the liver and red blood cell functioning is damaged.

 

Strep B stands for Group B Streptococcus, or GBS as it’s also known, and is a type of bacteria that lives in some people’s bodies. About a third of adults have GBS in their intestines, and for a quarter of women it’s in their vagina. Generally it’s not a problem and it lives there happily causing no symptoms or problems.

 

If you’re a carried of GBS, then babies can be exposed to it before or during birth. Whilst most babies suffer no ill effects at all, about one in 1,000 babies in the UK develop an infection and in a small number of cases it can be fatal. 

 

If a baby does become infected with GBS, over 80% will develop symptoms within the first two days after being born. Symptoms include breathing problems, blood infections, high or low temperature, irritability, low pressure and poor feeding, but most of the babies recover fully. However, if the symptoms in the next couple of months (after a baby is three months old, GBS infection is very rare) they can turn into a type of meningitis, called GBS meningitis, pneumonia or blood poisoning. One third of babies that survive GBS meningitis are left with long-term effects, such as lung damage, sight loss or hearing loss.

 

One of the problems with GBS is that tests for mums-to-be aren’t routinely available, so many women unaware that they carry the bacterial infection. Some tests are available on the NHS and there’s a test called the enrichment culture method (ECM) that is available privately.

 

There are several factors which put babies are greater risk of GBS, including:

 

 

If GBS has been detected as present in a woman prior to the baby being born, then intravenous antibiotics can be given as soon as labour commences and this will prevent the majority of mother-to-baby infections. 

 

Rachel Newcombe