Intramuscular penicillin administration at birth: Prevention of early-onset group B streptococcal disease

The large number of deaths in newborns resulting from invasive early-onset group B streptococcal (GBS) disease constitutes a grave challenge. The apparent absence of this affliction in our institution appears to be a dividend of the routine use of penicillin for the prophylaxis of ophthalmia neonatorum in all newborns since 1952. Significant confirmation of the efficacy of parenteral penicillin therapy for this purpose derives from a recent report from Halifax in Canada. It is concerned with 983 newborns weighing less than 2,500 gm at birth in whom no deaths occurred during the study period. This contrasted with ten deaths due to GBS disease in 1,208 similar infants in the preceding year when penicillin was not administered. During the study period 14,000 infants weighing more than 2,500 gm at birth were excluded from penicillin prophylaxis; GBS septicemia developed in seven of them.