A couple who lost their baby from a little-known infection have successfully urged the Government to do more to prevent it killing up to 100 children every year.

Alison and Craig Richards have been fighting to stamp out group B streptococcul (GBS) since their son Owen died less than an hour after his birth, and yesterday Health Minister Stephen Ladyman agreed to help raise awareness.

But he resisted their ultimate goal of introducing GBS screening for all pregnant women -- to detect whether they are carrying the infection before they pass it on to their babies during childbirth.

Mr and Mrs Richards, of Stonesfield, near Woodstock, had no knowledge of GBS before Owen was born in September 2002. He died despite attempts by doctors and nurses to resuscitate him.

If Mrs Richards had been detected as a carrier, she could have had intravenous antibiotics during labour to save Owen's life. After a meeting with Mr Ladyman yesterday, she said: "It looks like our campaign is making a difference. It seemed like GBS was something the Government knew nothing about before and now they've done a lot of research.

"To be honest we weren't expecting him to agree to screening without further research, but he was generally open-minded and listened to a lot of sad stories from parents like us.

"He agreed that recent guidelines put in place by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists that women at risk are automatically screened, should be adhered to by all hospitals.

"At the moment it's a bit of a lottery, depending on which hospital you're at. Basically if that policy had been in place when I had Owen, I'd have been given antibiotics and he probably would have survived. Mr Ladyman agreed to ensure all hospitals took notice of the policy."

Witney MP David Cameron, who took up the campaign after hearing about the Richards' story, led the delegation of 18 families to yesterday's meeting.

He said: "We wanted more information for pregnant women, more information for health professionals, more research into GBS and screening for all pregnant women.

"What we got was promises that more would be done to produce information for mothers and health professionals to raise awareness. Research is going ahead and Mr Ladyman guaranteed that the timetable for that would be tough.

Mr Cameron added: "The minister pointed out all the problems with screening, but said if it was workable and achievable he would introduce it.

"It's not yet definitely proved that these screening tests really show up GBS in every case. We have to prove the test works and that we could introduce it workably. Then we have to show that women could be realistically offered the choice of antibiotics during childbirth. In our view, that would save lives."