Mother Cautions Parents To Not Kiss Babies After Her Child Is Hospitalized With Respiratory Virus (RSV)

Sep 30, 2019 by apost team

With summer over and fall arriving, it's now flu season. In Keansburg, New Jersey, Ariana DiGrigorio's eight month old son ended up in the hospital after catching a respiratory virus. She is now warning anyone who may be sick to keep their distance whenever they're around babies.

At the time of little Antonio's being in the hospital, Ariana showed a photo of him in a hospital crib hooked to a breathing tube. This photo was meant to show how dangerous respiratory syncytial virus can be. This virus infects the lungs and respiratory tract.

With the photo, DiGrigorio wrote that sick adults are contagious hours and hours before they start showing symptoms of being sick. She advises adults who may be sick to keep their mouths away from babies in order to avoid breathing on them.

She knows how babies are seen as beautiful and adorable, and it makes people want to hover over them. "Please keep your mouths/breaths away from a baby's face, hands, and feet. Don't be the reason a baby is hospitalized (or dead)," she wrote.

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Antonio is currently a year old. Last December, he was sent home from daycare with a fever and was diagnosed with having the flu. DiGrigorio took him to the hospital and he was tested for RSV; the test came back negative. Two months later, he was still showing symptoms of having the flu and was taken back to the hospital.

This time he tested positive for having RSV. DiGrigorio remembers it being a scary time. They gave him Albuterol breathing treatments and they were helping at first. Then he got worse and had to be transferred to the ICU. DiGrigorio thinks that Antonio got the flu from his daycare and he just got worse from there.

Dr. Saumya Bhutani from the ABC News' Medical Unit explained to Good Morning America that even though the virus can infect kids by the time they're two years old, it can infect adults as well. The most common time for RSV to occur is December to March; the winter months. It's contagious and can spread easily among kids through respiratory droplets; saliva droplets from a cough or snot droplets from a sneeze.

Kids can come in contact with droplets directly or touch surfaces that are covered in droplets. This makes a daycare center a place where the infection can easily spread and be picked up. Kids will rarely die from RSV unless they have other medical conditions which will make the infection worse.

People who are infected with RSV are usually contagious for only a few days to a week. But people and infants who have weak immune systems can still be contagious weeks after they have stopped showing symptoms. Children can be exposed to and become infected with RSV in environments such as schools and daycare centers.

They become contagious and can spread the virus to their parents and any other people they are frequently around. RSV can remain on a hard surface for hours, much longer than on a soft surface.

Young infants, young children who have a chronic lung or congenital heart disease or immune systems that have been compromised have a higher chance of contracting a disease caused by RSV. Adults that have compromised immune systems or a heart or lung disease are also at a high risk for an RSV associated disease.

DiGrigorio's post was meant to inform people about RSV. Her post can help make sure that you don't end up putting a friend's baby in the hospital. Now that we are entering the cold and flu season, mothers everywhere want to do what they can to prevent their infants from becoming infected.

DiGrigorio's post is definitely informative and important for every mother to know. The more who see it, the better.