A CHARITY has given its support to a campaign by a bereaved couple calling for action to protect newborn babies.

Representatives from Lindfield-based Group B Strep Support joined Fiona Paddon and Scott Bradley as they handed over a petition of more than 250,000 signatures to the Department of Health.

The petition calls on Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and other senior officials to ensure that routine testing for the infection group B streptococcus (GBS) is offered to all pregnant women.

The test could prevent more than 80 per cent of GBS infections in babies born to women carrying the bacteria, and would cost just £11 each.

GBS is the UK’s most common cause of life-threatening infection for babies and can lead to meningitis, sepsis and pneumonia.

The couple, from London, lost their son, Edward, in 2015 after he was born with the infection.

They were accompanied to Whitehall by Group B Strep Support founder Jane Plumb and Mid Sussex MP Nicholas Soames, a patron of the charity.

Ms Paddon said: “It is almost impossible to think your baby will die.

“And to be told that I could have been tested, and then successfully treated, for the very thing that killed Edward is almost too much to bear.

“If I had been tested, I would have been given antibiotics in labour, which almost always prevent tragedies like ours.”

Mrs Plumb, from Lindfield, founded the charity 20 years ago following the death of her son, Theo.

She said: “Every year, more babies are suffering avoidable group B strep infections – typically sepsis and meningitis.

“Most of these infections are preventable and, in other countries, would be prevented.

“The UK needs to act now to protect newborn babies from these devastating infections.

“Pregnant women should be given information about group B strep and offered the opportunity to be tested.

“When that happens, we will see the number of families suffering the appalling effects of avoidable group B strep infection in their babies fall dramatically.”

The charity campaigns for greater awareness of group B strep in new and expectant parents and wants every pregnant woman in the UK to be given accurate information about it as a routine part of antenatal care, coupled with the offer of testing.