.png?sfvrsn=6d0e27cd_1 "Partnership for Change - v7 (1)")
The first two pregnancies were smooth and easy for Staci Shockley from the USA. Then she suffered back-to-back losses. She experienced miscarriages with her daughter Emma at 20 weeks in 2012, her son Braiden at 17 weeks in 2013, and a set of twins at 17 weeks in 2019.
For each of these losses, Staci went in for a normal medical appointment and no heartbeat could be found. She had to be induced and gave birth to the babies vaginally. Each time, the autopsies showed Group B Streptococcus (GBS) as the cause of death. Her babies that died had GBS bacteria in their hearts.
Staci was devastated, especially with the recurrences. 'I had never heard of a stillbirth before the first loss, and certainly not of GBS. And I was told after losing Emma that this was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and it would not happen again, but it did: again and again. The hardest thing for me was going through the pain of labour and having nothing to show for it."
Staci avoided attending baby showers for many years as she grieved her losses. It was too painful to see her cousins with their babies, especially those who were pregnant at the same time as her. She spent a lot of time researching GBS and grief.
"It was a dark time for my husband and me. I had two kids already from a previous marriage and the losses were a huge strain on our relationship. It took a long time for us to get back to a good place."
A few months after her third loss in 2019, Staci received a telephone call from the Health Department telling her that during any future pregnancy she should take daily antibiotics, starting at 10 weeks. She decided to engage an infectious disease specialist and was put on daily antibiotics and progesterone. She became pregnant again in 2020. This time she opted to test for GBS every week.
"The pressure and anxiety were so great. With every scan my questions were: are they breathing? Are they alive?"
All went well and Staci gave birth to twins in October 2020.
As a child protection officer, Staci says she still finds it hard working with children named Emma, because she was Staci's first loss.
While most of the specialists Staci saw were very encouraging and accommodating when she was pregnant with her twins, there was one doctor who wanted neither to test her for GBS weekly nor to keep her on antibiotics.
"I voiced it, and I told them I would rather take a test and get a negative result than not test and have dead babies again. Ultimately, they did what I wanted them to do and tested every week. I would like to see that continue. Women should articulate what they feel they need, because after all it is they who carry the biggest burden if things do not go well."
