On 29 March 2007 our daughter Sabrina was born in the Lukas hospital in Apeldoorn. She was born exactly 5 weeks too early. After about 20 hours of my waters breaking, I gave birth to our third child at 2.30 am. Such happiness when, even though small, she came into the world healthy and well. At birth, she weighed 2195 grams, a beautiful little girl weighing 4 pounds, we thought. After she was born, she was taken to the incubator ward to keep warm, and we went straight there to be with her.
Around 8 o’clock, I went to see her and to hold her, and she was already grunting and breathing badly. I felt bad I couldn’t comfort her. About an hour later, the paediatrician came to my bed, and he told us what he thought might be causing the grunting sounds Sabrina was making. He had already started her on antibiotics and soon put her on a ventilator.
Around that time the results of my culture came back, showing that I had been diagnosed with a Group B Streptococcus (GBS) bacterium. Because my waters had been broken for a long time, the bacterium had the chance to get to our child. They took that culture when I was admitted in the morning the day before and I still don’t understand why a culture that is ‘standard’ protocol for something that, while doctors are waiting for the results, can make a child so ill… it’s far too late when you finally get the results! According to the doctors, it was likely that the GBS that broke my waters.
That same afternoon, we ended up at the NICU at UMC Radboud Nijmegen with our daughter where they tried various treatments on her. Sabrina was not doing well at all, and we could’ve already lost her that afternoon in Nijmegen. The infection went so fast once she started getting symptoms! Less than 24 hours after her birth, they put her on an ECMO heart-lung machine. It’s terribly sad to see your child hooked up to all those tubes.
She remained stable for a couple of days, and you hope and pray for the best. To our great sorrow, she suffered one of the complications we had been warned about: she had a brain haemorrhage that Sunday. There was nothing more they could do for her; too much damage had already been done. On the evening of 1 April, the doctors took Sabrina off the heart-lung machine and a little later she died in my arms surrounded by the whole family.
Since this has happened to us, we have heard many stories about this terrible bacterium. Babies become extremely ill from it, and most future parents have never heard of it. According to statistics, it doesn’t happen often that a baby becomes ill, but when it does, they can be seriously affected. Children can suffer brain damage, can become blind, pneumonia, sepsis, meningitis, and can in some cases die, like our daughter Sabrina.
She is our third child, and you would think you have read everything to prepare you for the birth of your third child. But sadly, we were not prepared for this. We think there should be more attention to Group B Streptococcus, so people can be more alert for signals that something is not right. A mother carries this bacterium without really being affected herself. However, there have been signals that I was carrying these ‘creatures’ with me during my pregnancy. Bladder infections in pregnant women should always be treated, but, unfortunately, I was not referred to the gynaecologist for a culture and a subsequent course of antibiotics. Antibiotics during the pregnancy and during the birth might have saved my daughter. With hindsight, I had 3 of the 5 risk factors: early birth, prolonged rupture of membranes (approx. 20 hours) and a bladder infection.