The most common clinical syndromes of EOD are sepsis without apparent focus, pneumonia, and less frequently meningitis. EOD is acquired vertically (vertical transmission),  through exposure of the fetus or the baby to GBS from the vagina of a colonized woman, either intrautero or during birth after rupture of membranes. Infants can be infected during passage through the birth canal, nevertheless newborns that acquire GBS through this route can become only colonized, and these colonized infants habitually do not develop EOD. Roughly 50% of newborns to GBS colonized mothers are also GBS colonized and (without prevention measures) 1–2% of these newborns will develop EOD. In the past, the incidence of EOD ranged from 0.7 to 3.7 per thousand live births in the US and from 0.2 to 3.25 per thousand in Europe. In 2008, after widespread use of antenatal screening and intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP), the CDC reported an incidence of 0.28 cases of EOD per thousand live births in the US.Multistate surveillance 2006-2015 shows a decline in EOD from 0.37 to 0.23 per 1000 live births in the US but LOD remains steady at 0.31 per 1000 live births.It has been indicated that where there was a policy of providing IAP for GBS colonized mothers the overall risk of EOGBS is 0.3%. Since 2006 to 2015 the incidence of GBS EOD decreased from 0.37 to 0.23 per thousand live births in the US.Though maternal GBS colonization is the key determinant for EOD, other factors also increase the risk.
Prevention of neonatal infection
The only reliable way to prevent EOD currently is intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP), that is to say administration of antibiotics during delivery. It has been proved that intravenous penicillin or ampicillin administered for at least 4 hours before delivery to GBS colonized women is very effective at preventing vertical transmission of GBS from mother to baby and EOD. Intravenous penicillin remains the agent of choice for IAP, with intravenous ampicillin as an acceptable alternative. For penicillin allergic women, the laboratory requisitions for ordering antepartum GBS screening cultures should indicate clearly the presence of penicillin allergy.Cefazolin, clindamycin, and vancomycin are used to prevent EOD in infants born to penicillin-allergic mothers. Intravenous vancomycin is recommended for IAP in women colonized with a clindamycin-resistant Group B Streptococcus strain and a severe penicillin allergy.There are two ways to identify female candidates to receive intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis: a risk-based approach or a culture-based screening approach. The culture-based screening approach identifies candidates to receive IAP using lower vaginal and rectal cultures obtained between 36 and 37 weeks gestation (32–34 weeks of gestation for women with twins) and IAP is administered to all GBS colonized women.