I was sent an early copy of a new book, Touching Distance, last week. I was gripped by it from start to finish and it consumed most of my weekend.

I have also been alerted to a post by dovegreyreader who has also spotted the link between Touching Distance and Friday's Child.

Touching Distance is set in 1790, in the middle of an epidemic of childbed fever in Aberdeen. A young doctor, Alexander Gordon, discovers - and sacrifices his career and his marriage to publish the fact - that it is he, his peers and midwives who are spreading the disease.

To continue the brief history lesson, Oliver Wendell-Holmes published the same information in 1843. He too was ridiculed by his peers. A few years later, and Ignaz Semmelweis, drew the same conclusion, markedly reducing maternal death by using a chlorinated lime solution for hand washing. He too was ridiculed.

Medicine has moved on: in the West, hygiene practice means that childbed fever does not reach epidemic rates of occurrence - it is not being spread by doctors or midwives. What has not changed is that streptococcus, the cause that Gordon et al couldn't have known of, is still with us. It may wax and wane in prevalence, but it is in us, on us and with us at all times. It is still causing deaths from childbed fever.

We cannot assume that hand washing makes our mothers safe. We can't vaccinate and we can't wash it out of the world, but we can spot the symptoms of its infection while there is still time to treat a mother before she requires long term hospitalisation, a hysterectomy or she dies.

When I picked Emily up from school this afternoon (and I can hear what she'd say to me here, "It's not school, Daddy, it's NURSERY school") I said hello to the head teacher as Emily came rushing out.

"I saved this for you," she said, "It's missing a bit but I thought you'd be interested." She handed me a pulled out spread from a newspaper.

When I got home I started reading it. It was an article from Times2 last week, Save the independent midwife, along with a personal tale, right at the end in the on-line version, written by a mother, Alex O'Connell, who had had a horrific first delivery, and had opted for a home birth the next time, assisted by an independent midwife.

I finished reading it on-line and something jumped out at me. It was the reference to Alex's post-puerperal fever after discharge from hospital first time. How lucky she was that it only took two doses of antibiotics to shift it, and how wrong she was to assume that the lack of infection second time around was because she was far from a maternity ward.

Yes you can acquire an infection in hospital - MRSA, C diff etc - but puerperal/childbed fever is not a hospital acquired infection - it is caused by community bacteria, and nobody is safe. I'm going to go on and on saying it. I'm even going to shout it. NOBODY IS SAFE FROM THIS HORRIFIC DISEASE, whether they deliver in hospital, a birthing centre, their own bedroom or the back of a taxi.

It doesn't matter whether they are young, old, fat or thin. It  doesn't matter if the midwife is independent or NHS employed, it just matters that the symptoms are spotted in time to give you your antibiotics.

Back in January, I wrote in the blog about Screening for Group A Strep (GAS). Since then I have thought about it a lot, and discussed it with various medical professionals.

I am convinced it is a worthless exercise. Worse than that, it could be dangerous. Why?

A woman can be colonised with GAS at any point in her life*, let alone in her pregnancy or puerperum, so all a test would do is say that she does or does not carry the bacteria at this very point in time.

What if she was colonised the day after the test? She would have been given a false sense of security by a negative result. If GAS was only introduced some time after delivery, and it caused a genital tract sepsis, the last thing on her mind would be childbed fever, because she was 'clear'.

It is of far more value to skip the testing and instead take every woman's temperature and pulse regularly in the days after delivery. Then tell her about the condition and how to recognise that she might have it. She must also be told of the vital importance of being seen, swabbed and treated if infection is suspected, before her health and her life are in danger.

* up to 30% of us may be carrying Group A Strep in our throats or on our skin

I've just been alerted to a Woman's Hour discussion on childbed fever this morning. I listened to a recording of it on the BBC website.

The author of a new book, The Bone Garden discusses childbed fever with the presenter and a professor, but in the context of the past. They highlight the pain and agony of dying from this terrible disease, and how doctors used to be the cause of epidemics - by spreading it - but unfortunately there was no mention of the underlying natural causes - so often Group A streptococcus, a community bacterium.

Towards the end there is recognition of the fact that 16 women died of it in the mid 1990s, and that one woman (Jessica, I wondered) died of it in 2004. Why not go further and quote the more up to date statistics of 1997-99, 2000-02 and 2003-05 or mention the two more recent cases of childbed fever in Winchester last December as well?

I hope that when Friday's Child is published I may get the opportunity to bring the story up to date and highlight its continuance.

BBC South Today has tonight reported further in the aftermath of the two tragic deaths at The Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.

The hospital has, to reassure its patients, implemented a screening programme for Group A Streptococcus, but it doesn't plan to continue with it beyond the short term.

So, is it just a PR exercise, or is this test an accurate and useful weapon against childbed fever (still nobody calls it that, it is still 'complications caused by...') There may 'only' be an average of six maternal sepsis deaths a year, but even one avoidable death is enough to warrant prevention, isn't it?

If the test is not accurate then why are they doing it? If it is not 'cost effective' to continue it or take it nationwide, does the NHS not consider what yet another death could cost it?

If there was anything that could stop mothers dying, surely a responsible government would want to implement it, when 30% of the population carry Group A Strep?

I hear so many stories from mothers who have only just survived a Group A Strep infection that, if the problem is not taken seriously, it will be a time bomb that we are sitting on.

If only infection rates were measured and not just deaths - this is a far more common problem than we are led to believe.

Watch the BBC's report 

There's been a fair bit of news recently (see here and here) about two poor mothers who gave birth on the same day, in the same hospital, and who both died within three days, just before Christmas. The coverage has focused on the fact that they both had a Group A Strep infection, and there has been much talk about infections (hospital and community acquired) and superbugs.

Luckily, it was acknowledged that GAS is not a superbug and that it is treatable. Unfortunately there was no mention of the fact that these two women died of Childbed/Puerperal Fever, and that it is a well documented and once much feared condition that should not be killing any more.

My heart goes out to these women and their families - how well Harry, Emily and I know their pain and confusion.

I have failed in my New Year's resolution to give up smoking (sorry, Harry) but am so far succeeding in my second - to tidy, sort and organise the house better. I also have a third: to step up the campaign to raise awareness of childbed fever. 2008 was always going to be a big year with the launch of my book, Friday's Child, in June but I want to make more noise and more of a difference than just that.

Thanks to a very kind person who has offered her professional help at no charge, I just may be able to. Many others have also offered to help, and I'm sure I'll be in touch.

While the pizza was in the oven tonight I ironed Harry's Karate Gi for tomorrow. That's not remarkable (or at least it shouldn't be) but what I was thinking while I steamed is.

I write, periodically, about some of the most intimate moments of my life, of Jessica's life and death. I'm used to that and it's a conscious decision, with a clear aim of trying to prevent it happening again to some other woman and her heart broken family.

What I never expected was to be inundated with emails and comments on this blog from other women who are prepared to share their equally intimate, graphic and heart rending stories of near disaster, pain and mistreatment.

I'm so grateful for all of this honesty and I hope that these stories as well as Jessica's will help to change things for the next mother, maybe for you.

Aarrggh. I could scream.

I heard a story at lunch today that made my skin crawl. A mother (a friend of a friend and I don't know her, so I won't use specifics) was unwell a couple of days after delivering a baby in a London hospital. Told that she had tendonitis in her foot, she was sent home.

Progressively worse, she took herself to A&E and demanded to be taken seriously as she couldn't possibly be feeling that ill just because of a foot complaint.

When humoured by the staff and given proper attention, she was then told that if she was any more unwell she would have been dead. She was treated in Intensive Care for two and a half weeks and told that it might be up to a year before she was back to full health.

What (as if you need to ask) was wrong? She was suffering from Puerperal Sepsis. Childbed Fever. The hospital were amazed - they 'didn't think it still happened'.

When will somebody, anybody, wake up and listen? Mothers' health should not be ignored like this. Mothers do still get Childbed Fever, and yes, some of them do die. Those that don't seem to live by the skin of their teeth. I have almost lost count of the number of stories that I have heard in the last few years and although most (but not all) of these stories have happy endings, nobody, let alone a mother after childbirth, should be getting so ill in the 21st century.

If I've heard of all these stories, why hasn't the NHS, and why are they not getting the picture. How many more Jessica's have to die before they will?

I've just been, as I sometimes do, trawling the Internet for stories, comment and opinion on puerperal sepsis with the help of my friend. It really bothers me that there is so much opinion, comment and belief that childbed fever/puerperal fever/puerperal sepsis (call it what you will) is still caused by lack of hygiene and of handwashing.

Yes, if a mother has an internal examination by someone who has been performing autopsies without washing their hands in chlorinated lime, they're in trouble. What Ignaz Semmelwies discovered was the cause of the spread, in epidemic proportions, of sepsis.

Group A Streptococcus is, as far as I'm aware, the biggest puerperal sepsis causing bacterium. It is also naturally occuring on and within many of us quite harmlessly. The attitude that handwashing, sterile gloves and the passing of centuries has rid us of the original problem is at the heart of Jessica's problem.

I've now received so many messages, through comments on this blog and mostly by email, from women who have survived Puerperal Sepsis (or Childbed Fever) that it deserves comment.

Often the sepsis is due to retained placenta, but equally often - as in Jessica's case - it is not. To underline the problem, Jessica had a totally normal, textbook delivery. In the aftermath of her death and during the legal investigation every aspect of delivery and immediate post delivery care was scrutinised and no fault was found.

A perfect, complication free delivery is no guarantee of safety from sepsis. Jessica died because Group A Streptococcus invaded her uterus. Group A Strep is a relatively common bacteria - 'Strep Throat' is a more common manifestation. What is amiss is not to recognise the symptoms of Group A Strep when it takes a hold. It is a nasty and highly toxic organism and unless the symptoms of infection are caught early enough, death is a very real outcome.

Whatever the cause, infection in mothers should ring alarm bells, and the trigger should be any sign of fever or general feeling of unwell. Do not put a feverish temperature down to mother's milk coming in unless you are certain it cannot be infection.

When I was born my mother and I spent over a week in hospital so any infection would, had it occurred, in all probability have been picked up quickly enough. The fact that mothers are now turfed out of their beds in as little as six hours does not mean that the risk of childbed fever has diminished in any way.

It is purely complacency and cost saving. The risk is as strong as ever, and the stories that I have heard of so-called 'dirty' mothers with an infection pleading to be readmitted is heart rending. All too often it has been an understanding family GP with experience of working in third world countries that has insisted on admission and thereby saved the poor woman's life.

It makes me weep to know that there may be another Jessica any day. The reality is that there probably have been several, but I just haven't heard yet.