Respiratory Syncytial Virus affects up to 80 percent of babies in their first year. Here's how to protect your child.
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Brandi Nuñez knew her second baby would be born premature because her
doctors told her that her placenta had started separating from the uterus, but
with medical care she was able to last seven and a half months. Her baby boy,
Jagg, was born sturdy for a preemie, weighing in at 5.6 pounds and displaying
only the usual jaundice. After a week in neonatal care - a very short stay for a
preemie - he got a clean bill of health, and the Nuñez family settled in
happily at their Ridgeville, Indiana, home.
Three months later, Jagg caught what seemed like an ordinary cold, but when it
took a turn for the worse, Nuñez took him to the pediatrician. "She said
it was RSV, and that I should take him to the hospital right away," remembers
Nuñez. "I panicked."
RSV, short for Respiratory Syncytial Virus, is a hidden illness that strikes 70
to 80 percent of all children in their first year of life. It is the primary
cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis in young children, and it is the most common
reason for infant hospitalization. The American Academy of Pediatrics says some
125,000 U.S. children, mostly infants, are hospitalized each year because of RSV.
Some 500 of those babies die. And not only do babies get RSV, but everyone does,
often repeatedly. You've probably had it several times and never even known it.
"The symptoms of RSV are the same as a common cold," says Julia McMillan, M.D.,
professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University in Boston. In healthy,
full-term babies, older children and adults, RSV brings on head congestion,
sneezing and coughing. It's viral, just like a cold, so you can catch it over and
over again, and the only treatment is rest, fluids and time. Within a week, the
typical RSV sufferer is back to normal.
But for premature babies, as well as babies born with heart or lung problems, RSV
can turn deadly serious. "With an at-risk baby, RSV progresses into a more severe
cough, with labored breathing and wheezing," says William Sears, M.D., a
California pediatrician and author of The Baby Book (Little Brown). "Many of them
land in the hospital. It's not only hard on the babies, it's hard on the parents,
because these are the babies who have already spent a lot of time in the
hospital."
Little Jagg Nuñez was typical of prematurely born RSV sufferers. "It
sounded like he had bronchitis," says his mother. "He had a croupy cough, kind of
a hack. And even after we got him to the hospital, it got worse before it got
better." During his month in the hospital, Jagg was never allowed to leave his
oxygen tent, so Nuñez and her husband took turns staying under it with
him. Sometimes the whole family, including older brother Aston, spent the night
at the hospital. Because the Nuñezes had never heard of RSV, they were
amazed to see that Jagg wasn't the only baby hospitalized because of it. "We live
in a small town," says Nuñez. "Our hospital only has 25 beds, and four of
them were babies with RSV."
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