Is there any relationship between infected breast milk and late-onset gbs disease?

Key words: Group-B streptococcus (GBS), Breast milk, Recurrent infection, Late-onset disease

Recurrent GBS infection represents a potentially preventable subset of late-onset GBS sepsis. It occurs in 0.5% to 3.0% of infants. Mother can represent the first source of late-onset disease (LOD) and some case reports attribute responsibility to breast milk. The paper describes a case of a septic infant who had a GBS positive blood culture and who, after appropriate antibiotic treatment, experienced relapse. At that time a bacterial culture of the expressed breast milk tested positive for GBS and the mother was treated with antibiotic therapy. As reported in literature, sometimes the suspension of breast milk does not prevent relapse, demonstrating that GBS-colonized milk is not responsible of the recurrence, but rather an epiphenomenon of LOD. However, the research of GBS on breast milk should be carried out in the late-onset neonatal sepsis and an eradicating antibiotic treatment of GBS-positive mother could prevent recurrent GBS sepsis.