Mum Rhiannon says,
“When I was in late pregnancy I felt “off” and had some light spotting. I asked to be swabbed and was declined. I had heard from friends about group B Strep and I asked twice for a test but was told I was “paranoid”.
When my baby was born she was ok for the first week and then got a temperature. On the Thursday of the second week her temp was 40. I took her to the GP who said to keep her cool and stop worrying. I went again on the Friday and was told the same although I did argue back that something was wrong. That night I was hospitalised in a psychiatric ward.
On the Saturday an on call psychiatrist came and said mothers’ instinct is a gift and let me leave to take my daughter to the main hospital. They said it could be a urine infection and told me to go home and sleep. We were called back and told she had taken “a turn for the worse”. The nurse met us at the door and explained how she looked different and was arching back. They said she had monitors on her and would need a lumbar puncture. They said it would be painful for her but she didn’t scream or cry. She looked exhausted.
They had already started antibiotics and said this could delay knowing what infection she had, but they suspected meningitis. Having lost a cousin to meningitis I was very scared. She was in the high dependency unit of the children’s wards but her breathing was changing and oxygen dropping. They moved her to incubator with CPAP (Continuous positive airway pressure). She was swollen all over. I asked what strain once they confirmed meningitis but they said they didn’t know.
After two weeks she was discharged home with daily visits for antibiotic injections. A nurse came to my house from the mental health team and asked if I had had my antibiotics. I asked what for and she said it was just down for them to be picked up for me. I took them not really knowing why but just that they had given them.
When my daughter was five I did a subject access request for her records. One page said “mother – maternal psychosis” and the next revealed it all, “streptococcal bacterial meningitis contracted from vaginal canal”.
My daughter has profound sensory neural hearing loss in her right ear, behavioural issues and development delays.”