The Effects Of Prophylactic Probiotic Use On Reducing Group B Streptococcus Colonization In Pregnant People

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a gram-positive coccus that normally colonizes the digestive and genital tract (Puopolo & Madoff, 2023). Worldwide, approximately 18% of pregnant people[1] carry GBS, and in the United States of America (USA), approximately 25% of pregnant people are GBS positive (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). GBS can be passed onto an infant during birth when it travels through the vaginal canal, a process called vertical transmission. Unfortunately, for newborns who have an immature immune system, GBS can result in early onset GBS disease requiring a lengthy stay in the NICU or even death. Currently, in the USA, the treatment for pregnant people positive for GBS is intravenous antibiotics during labor, which reduces the risk of vertical transmission (Baker, 2023). While effective at decreasing GBS, the systemic antibiotics wipe out beneficial bacteria throughout the body and, most importantly for pregnant people, the genital tract. As a result, both the pregnant person’s and infant’s microbiome are negatively impacted, thereby subjecting them to other infections. Because of the negative effects of antibiotics, researchers have explored alternative treatments to reduce GBS colonization. One such alternative is using prophylactic probiotics during pregnancy, which is the question discussed here. [1] For the purpose of this paper, pregnant persons/people are those who are assigned female at birth regardless of gender presentation