Mothers urge not to kiss infants due to RSV season worries

Baby in incubator

It’s that time of year again, not autumn but RSV season. 

Respiratory Syncytial Virus, most commonly known as RSV, is a highly infectious virus which causes symptoms of nothing more than a common cold for the most of us. However, for one age demographic it can be fatal. In infants under the age of 2 it can lead to lung infections, pneumonia and bronchiolitis, and claims the lives of 160,000 a year. 

The chance of serious infection is greatest amongst babies who were premature, children under the age of 2 born with heart or lung disease, infants with weakened immune systems due to illness or medical treatment and babies under 10 weeks old. 

For Courtney Chapman, from Rainham, peak RSV season is her living nightmare as she worries for her baby, Harper, who was severely premature.

At 8 months old, Harper is doing extremely well but that wasn’t always the case. Being 4 months early, Harper had to fight for her life in an incubator for months. 

The 23-year-old mother said that when her daughter was first born back in early January she could almost fit in the palm of your hands.  

The young mother said that the fear of her daughter ending up ill again whilst RSV is writhe is large, especially after just recently being able to have her oxygen mask removed.

“I definitely worry this time of year,” she said. “Because Harper was so premature she’s more at risk of catching something as her immune system still isn’t great. We just try to let everyone know that if they’ve got a cold – or even a little cough – then we’d rather they didn’t see Harper just in case.

“We also tell people not to give her any face kisses but people don’t listen and do it anyway, they shrug it off and tell us ‘Oh, she’ll be fine!’. It’s hard because a lot of people just think you’re just being dramatic and way too protective but I’ve seen babies from the unit Harper was in nearly die from a cold so it’s a lot more serious than people think. 

“No one knows your child like you do – I’m just trying to protect her. I don’t want her hospitalized again.” 

Many mothers are making their fears of RSV known by trying to spread the word about the illness and to ensure others are not unknowingly and accidentally contaminating infants. There’s no way of preventing RSV as there is no vaccine but there is ways to minimise the risk to young children such as washing your hands before touching an infant, avoiding kissing your baby if you have cold symptoms, keeping hard surfaces disinfected, not smoking around children and keeping vulnerable children away from anyone with cold symptoms.

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