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Passed from mother to baby, "Group B" strep is the most common cause of life-threatening infections in newborns. And although doctors currently screen all moms-to-be for the bacterium in the last few weeks of pregnancy, the test can miss those who become carriers in the final days before delivery putting baby at risk.

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Now the FDA has just approved a new screening for group b strep that's fast and can be performed during labor. Antibiotics can prevent infections detected at this critical point from passing from mom to baby. University of Florida doctors who put the new test through its paces in a clinical trial found that it's fast and accurate. If untreated, group b strep can cause serious complications in newborns like sepsis, pneumonia and meningitis. The new strep test can be performed at the bedside, while the traditional test requires trained lab personnel and up to three days to complete.

Dr. Rod Edwards / UF Obstetrician:

"The test then has the potential for being used at the time of labor rather than at 35 to 37 weeks of pregnancy. The reason that's important is that there are some patients who would be positive with a screening culture at 35 to 37 weeks but negative at but negative at the time of labor."

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The new screening, developed by a California biotech company, was tested on hundreds of women during labor, and yielded results in as little as seventy-five minutes. A positive test allowed doctors to immediately treat mother and baby for infection. Conversely, a negative test spared women and their babies a course of unnecessary antibiotics.

Dr. Rod Edwards / UF Obstetrician:

"I think we may have a test now that we can get from sample collection to an answer fast enough to screen patients at the time of labor for group B strep rather than during the pregnancy. And so we could better target the population who needs antibiotic prophylaxis."

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From the University of Florida Health Science Center, I'm Eva Egensteiner.