Greetings to you knowlegible Ladies!
I hope that you can help me. I am looking for some good natural alternatives in treating Group B Strep, either before labor (38-40+weeks) or during labor.
I have read some abstracts on PubMed on douching with chlorhexidine (Hibiclens) solution during labor can significantly reduce GBS transmission to babies. I have also read some anecdotal stories of garlic cloves inserted vaginally overnight for 3 nights, yogurt or yogurt cultures inserted vaginally, as well as taking collodial silver, vitamin C, and echinacea taken orally.
1. Do you know of specific regimines of taking some of these herbal/natural anti-biotics/immunoboosters? i.e. Take X amount of 500 mg Vit C, 250 mg echinacea, X amount of other herbal suppliment-X amount of times per day for X amount of days...etc.
2. Are garlic tablets (odor-free) taken orally just as effective as fresh cloves? (My husband really cannot stand it, nor sleep next to me, when I have used vaginal garlic cloves to get rid of past yeast infections.)
3. Do you have any specific websites from/by midwives that "speak" to other midwives about alternative/natural meds when dealing with GBS?
__________________________________________________ _
Backstory to these questions:
I have been seeing community midwives through England's NHS, and these ones I have been "assigned to" are very allopathically medical minded. During my 27 week check, I told one that I had a rash on my inner thighs, and around my vulva. She asked if she could see, and then asked if she could take a vaginal swab for thrush (yeast infection). I consented to that. A week later and she calls back to tell me that I am +GBS. I am mad because I never consented for a GBS test, and upset because my educational background in biology, microbiology and human anatomy screams at me "Aaah! hemolytic bacteria!" and I see colonies on blood agar petri dishes and slides of microscopic circles race through my head.
Then reality sets in, and I know that I am going to have a fight on my hands for the midwives to "allow" me to birth at home and the fear that it will instill in my husband (he was once training to be a paramedic, so he tends to be very allopathically medical minded--It took me about a year before we officially started to TTC to get him just "warmed" to the idea of homebirth). Most of the reason that I go to the midwives in the first place is for my husband's sake as this is his first bio child and so that he feels "more a part of this pregnancy", and because our living accomidations are gov't run. Poor (ahem, "economically challenged" HA!) = parents that are automatically stereotyped as uneducated and horrible for raising children. Therefore, we are more likely to have gov't health professionals poking around in our business trying to "help" us.
So I am trying to make as few ripples as I can, yet state a clear case to my husband and midwives on why IV abx are not the only way to combat GBS, the side effects and complications that IV abx themselves can cause for baby and I, and that there are proven natural/alternative methods that can do the same or better than the allopathic medical standard. I am at the same time secretly planning an "accidental" UC, so *I* want to have things on hand for the weeks leading to labor and actual labor itself.
Thank you!
~Karin~
I hope that you can help me. I am looking for some good natural alternatives in treating Group B Strep, either before labor (38-40+weeks) or during labor.
I have read some abstracts on PubMed on douching with chlorhexidine (Hibiclens) solution during labor can significantly reduce GBS transmission to babies. I have also read some anecdotal stories of garlic cloves inserted vaginally overnight for 3 nights, yogurt or yogurt cultures inserted vaginally, as well as taking collodial silver, vitamin C, and echinacea taken orally.
1. Do you know of specific regimines of taking some of these herbal/natural anti-biotics/immunoboosters? i.e. Take X amount of 500 mg Vit C, 250 mg echinacea, X amount of other herbal suppliment-X amount of times per day for X amount of days...etc.
2. Are garlic tablets (odor-free) taken orally just as effective as fresh cloves? (My husband really cannot stand it, nor sleep next to me, when I have used vaginal garlic cloves to get rid of past yeast infections.)
3. Do you have any specific websites from/by midwives that "speak" to other midwives about alternative/natural meds when dealing with GBS?
__________________________________________________ _
Backstory to these questions:
I have been seeing community midwives through England's NHS, and these ones I have been "assigned to" are very allopathically medical minded. During my 27 week check, I told one that I had a rash on my inner thighs, and around my vulva. She asked if she could see, and then asked if she could take a vaginal swab for thrush (yeast infection). I consented to that. A week later and she calls back to tell me that I am +GBS. I am mad because I never consented for a GBS test, and upset because my educational background in biology, microbiology and human anatomy screams at me "Aaah! hemolytic bacteria!" and I see colonies on blood agar petri dishes and slides of microscopic circles race through my head.
Then reality sets in, and I know that I am going to have a fight on my hands for the midwives to "allow" me to birth at home and the fear that it will instill in my husband (he was once training to be a paramedic, so he tends to be very allopathically medical minded--It took me about a year before we officially started to TTC to get him just "warmed" to the idea of homebirth). Most of the reason that I go to the midwives in the first place is for my husband's sake as this is his first bio child and so that he feels "more a part of this pregnancy", and because our living accomidations are gov't run. Poor (ahem, "economically challenged" HA!) = parents that are automatically stereotyped as uneducated and horrible for raising children. Therefore, we are more likely to have gov't health professionals poking around in our business trying to "help" us.
So I am trying to make as few ripples as I can, yet state a clear case to my husband and midwives on why IV abx are not the only way to combat GBS, the side effects and complications that IV abx themselves can cause for baby and I, and that there are proven natural/alternative methods that can do the same or better than the allopathic medical standard. I am at the same time secretly planning an "accidental" UC, so *I* want to have things on hand for the weeks leading to labor and actual labor itself.
Thank you!
~Karin~
