GBS and Placenta Encapsulation
Some care providers insist on telling their clients that they should not consume their placenta if they test positive for GBS. Let’s explore why.
GBS (Group B Strep) is a bacteria found in the rectum and vagina of humans and some animals. It’s found in lots of adults…likely about 38 % of us are colonized. The bacteria levels fluctuate so at any given time, one could test positive and then a couple of weeks later, negative.
Pregnant people are tested during pregnancy to see how much bacteria is hanging out in the birth canal. The concern is that if there is colonization, it is possible for mom to pass the bacteria to her baby, who is more susceptible to illness because of their immature immune system. When a certain level of bacteria is reached, the pregnant person is considered “colonized”. Being colonized is NOT the same as having an infection. Statistics show that about 25% of pregnant people are colonized with GBS.
Pregnant persons can pass GBS to their babies during the birth process but are still encouraged to breastfeed. GBS can show up in mother’s milk, yet has never been reported to be risky, even for people who breastfeed. In fact, people are encouraged to breastfeed even when they have tested positive.
We test people during pregnancy here in the US using universal precautions. That means that all people are tested between 35-37 weeks of their pregnancies and if they test positive for colonization (meaning there are enough bacteria present to register), they are treated with antibiotics during labor.
In many other countries, they use the risk-based method and only treat people with antibiotics during labor if one or more of these symptoms is present: GBS in urine at any time during pregnancy, a previous birth in which the infant had a GBS infection, if labor occurs before 37 weeks (because heavy colonization in the genital tract can cause preterm labor), a fever during labor, or if the birthing person’s water has been broken for longer than 18 hours.
But first, I want to be clear that:
None of my clients, GBS-positive or otherwise, have gotten sick from ingesting their placentas
None of their babies have gotten sick
Many care providers have “allowed” their “patients” to have their {own} placentas, even when they’ve tested positive for GBS
So why do some care providers discourage moms from consuming their placentas if they test positive for GBS then?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s mostly bias and personal opinion, but there is this –
In 2016 there was an infant in Oregon who became infected with GBS. Twice.
The first evidence of infection came just hours after birth. The infant was treated at the hospital with antibiotics and sent home healthy. (Note: mom’s placenta hadn’t even left the hospital and baby was already showing signs of infection.)
Five days after being sent home healthy, the infant showed signs of illness again. The baby was admitted to a different hospital, diagnosed with late-onset GBS infection, treated with antibiotics, and then sent home healthy. The infant RECOVERED and, contrary to what many of you are telling your “patients”, did not die.
The mother of this baby was tested for GBS at 37 weeks and her results were negative.
So when this mom brought her infant home in 2016, she had not tested positive for GBS when they tested her at 37 weeks. Her breast milk was tested and GBS bacteria was not found in her breast milk. So there is no evidence that the infection actually came from mom.
Other family members were not tested.
Mom’s placenta pills were tested and did in fact test positive for GBS, so it is possible that she was positive at the time of birth.
But how likely is it that her consumption of placenta capsules actually caused this reinfection in her infant? And even IF the pills were the carrier, I’m not sure how anyone believes that the GBS bacteria would survive the stomach acid in mom’s gut.
And since mom’s breast milk tested negative, how would she even have passed it to her baby? If she had enough GBS in her system to pass on to her baby, then her breast milk levels would have been high enough to test positive.
Some other possible scenarios are that one of the family members was colonized and possibly took the pills from the jar and passed them to mom after not washing their hands when they used the restroom (WASH YOUR HANDS, PEOPLE).
Even in the CDC article, it is stated that “transmission from other colonized family members could not be ruled out.”
Another possibility is that the infection never cleared after the first round of antibiotics.
The point is that we have no evidence that this mom passed the infection to her baby.
Unfortunately, there are so many possibilities here and late-onset GBS infection is always very difficult to trace. There were so many variables that it’s impossible to know with certainty what actually caused this infant to get sick.
I suppose that vilifying the entire industry and blaming the placenta pills was the fastest and easiest option, though. Go, you guys. That’s just what we want from our care providers – for them to jump to conclusions and take the easy way out.
I will point out, however, that even Dr. Genevieve Buser, who is an infectious disease/pediatric specialist stated that she “is not necessarily recommending against placenta encapsulation”. Dr. Buser, by the way, was one of the doctors who treated the infected infant and one of the lead authors of that CDC article. So if even SHE is not making a blanket statement that placenta consumption for moms who test positive for GBS is dangerous, then why are you saying so, Dr. X? Do you know more than she? If so, please share your information with the rest of us. Because, after all, if our goal is to keep the birthing person safe, then we should all share the information that we have, amirite?
But let’s just say HYPOTHETICALLY that the pills were to blame here.
How can I be so confident when I tell my clients that their care provider is uninformed and incorrect? Or purposely ignorant?
First, GBS bacteria thrive in moist heat and cannot survive the encapsulation process when the placenta is processed according to safety protocols.
I process all of my placentas using the warmed preparation method, meaning that all placentas are steamed gently prior to dehydration. However, for people who have tested positive for GBS, I steam those placentas until they reach an internal temperature of 165 degrees. And I dehydrate all placentas at a temperature of 165 until every single piece is completely devoid of moisture, which is typically about 12 hours. I use the snap test. You get it.
So EVEN IF (in this ONE case from 2016), the cause of infection was the placenta pills (and I’m not saying it was), that simply means that whichever company processed this placenta into capsules did not follow industry-wide safety protocols.
Please note that this incident from 2016 was the ONE AND ONLY time that there was any correlation between a baby getting sick and placenta encapsulation.
This is a single incident – NOT A STUDY – and it had never happened before this, and has not happened since.
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4037808/
https://www.marchofdimes.org/complications/group-b-strep-infection.aspx
https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/study-maternal-placenta-consumption-causes-no-harm-newborns
