Why all women who need a forceps delivery should be given antibiotics

New mothers who have an assisted birth should all be given antibiotics to halve their risk of sepsis, a major study has found.

Giving women a preventative dose of antibiotics as a matter of course would cut maternal infections by 7,000 a year in the UK, new research shows.

Experts said the NHS and the World Health Organisation should update their guidelines so women routinely receive antibiotics if they have an assisted vaginal birth.

This is when forceps or a vacuum device called a ventouse suction cup are used to help deliver the baby.

Giving women a preventative dose of antibiotics as a matter of course would cut maternal infections by 7,000 a year in the UK

Giving women a preventative dose of antibiotics as a matter of course would cut maternal infections by 7,000 a year in the UK

One in eight births in England are currently assisted, around 85,000 a year. One in five of these women go on to develop an infection.

However only one in ten women got an infection if they were given antibiotics straight after childbirth, scientists at the University of Oxford found.

The study, published in The Lancet, looked at 3,420 women who gave birth in 27 UK hospitals.

The women were split into two groups, with the first group given a single dose of intravenous amoxicillin, a type of penicillin, within six hours of giving birth. The second group were given a placebo.

Data showed that infections halved among the group who received antibiotics, and cases of sepsis reduced by 56 per cent.

Only 11 per cent of the 1619 women who received amoxicillin got an infection, compared to 19 per cent of the 1,606 women in the placebo group.

WHAT IS ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE?

Antibiotics have been doled out unnecessarily by GPs and hospital staff for decades, fueling once harmless bacteria to become superbugs. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously warned if nothing is done the world is heading for a 'post-antibiotic' era.

It claimed common infections, such as chlamydia, will become killers without immediate solutions to the growing crisis.

Bacteria can become drug resistant when people take incorrect doses of antibiotics or if they are given out unnecessarily. 

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies claimed in 2016 that the threat of antibiotic resistance is as severe as terrorism.

Figures estimate that superbugs will kill 10 million people each year by 2050, with patients succumbing to once harmless bugs.

Around 700,000 people already die yearly due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria across the world. 

Concerns have repeatedly been raised that medicine will be taken back to the 'dark ages' if antibiotics are rendered ineffective in the coming years.

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