Comparing the safety of a single balloon catheter to dinoprostone for inducing labor in pregnant women with group B Streptococcus vaginal colonization: An observational study

Group B Streptococcus is a bacterium that colonizes in approximately 20% of pregnant women and can be vertically transmitted to newborns, leading to maternal-neonatal adverse outcomes, such as chorioamnionitis, neonatal sepsis, and pneumonia. However, there is currently no agreement on the optimal induction method for this specific population. This study aims to evaluate the safety of a single balloon catheter (BC) in comparison to dinoprostone for labor induction in term pregnant women with group B Streptococcus colonization. In this retrospective cohort study, a total of 321 term pregnancies with positive group B Streptococcus requiring Induction of labor (IOL) were included. Out of these, 80 pregnancies were induced with a single BC, while the remaining 241 were induced with dinoprostone. The study compared the safety outcomes between the 2 groups, specifically focusing on maternal and neonatal adverse events. It is important to note that all women in the study received prophylactic antibiotics. When prophylactic antibiotics were administered, no significant differences were observed in terms of mode of delivery, clinical chorioamnionitis, puerperal infection, fetal distress, neonatal asphyxia, neonatal infection, neonatal sepsis, NICU admission, and neonatal pneumonia between the 2 induction methods (all P > .05). Additionally, there were no reported cases of neonatal group B Streptococcus infection following balloon induction in pregnant women with vaginal GBS colonization. In relation to maternal and neonatal adverse events, the study findings indicated that labor induction using a BC was deemed safe for women who were colonized with group B Streptococcus, provided that prophylactic antibiotics were administered either at the onset of labor or when the membranes ruptured.