Baby Lucy: A foreboding sense of ‘not again’

“In the winter of 2016, just 18 months after our four-week-old baby boy had died from the complications of whooping cough, my husband and I confronted the realities of RSV when three-week old Lucy was rushed to hospital. 

I won’t lie. We were consumed by thoughts of Riley and a foreboding sense of ‘not again’. 

Being back in hospital with an infant requiring acute respiratory care was a traumatic experience, made even worse by the guilt that I knew little about RSV. 

With great medical care, Lucy recovered and was discharged in just three days. Many families are not so fortunate. 

I made a point of learning more about RSV and discovered that the virus is incredibly common, extremely unpredictable, and puts more young children in hospital than influenza. 

RSV is a topic often raised within the Immunisation Foundation of Australia community, with parents of hospitalised children often frustrated that they hadn’t known more about the virus.  

As a Foundation that advocates for immunisation, we are hopeful that RSV will soon become a vaccine-preventable illness. However, until that occurs, we want all Australians responsible for the wellbeing of an infant to learn more about RSV, how to prevent infection, ways to minimise its impact, and importantly know when to seek medical care.”