Mom's Vaccination Message Goes Viral: 'Maybe This Video Will Convince You'

[joeybee12]

The mother of a 4-month-old boy with whooping cough has posted a video of her sick son on Facebook in hopes of encouraging other parents to vaccinate their kids.

Rebecca Harreman, a mom in Brisbane, Australia, posted the 27-second video highlighting what a child with pertussis, commonly referred to as whooping cough, goes through. “For those of you sitting on the fence on whether to vaccinate yourself and your kids or not, maybe this video will convince you,” the mom writes. The video, which has gotten more than 1.2 million views and more than 27,500 shares since it was posted on Nov. 13, shows Harreman’s young son, with a runny nose and red eyes, coughing repeatedly. But the mom says the video is not nearly the worst of it — in fact, she says it’s actually a “good” moment for the baby. “When I say this is good, I mean that’s absolutely nothing. Not even long enough to be called a coughing fit. Nothing compared to watching him turn blue from coughing for so long and so much he can’t take a single breath.”

Harreman says the video was taken 23 days after her son’s cough started, which is when the worst should be over, but that a simple cold she caught and passed to her son is now causing him to relapse. The cough can last for up to 100 days, she adds.

Since he’s got four months and one vaccination under his belt, Harreman’s son should be able to fight off the illness, the mother writes. “There is no real way to treat it. You can only try and get some oxygen in them. That is if they breathe it in, and they have to do that all on their own,” she says. “Imagine that in a tiny newborn baby. Can you imagine?!”

http://news.yahoo.com/moms-vaccination-message-goes-viral-maybe-this-182305438.html

Poor little boy!

[FLPanhandle]

1. Since when has logic or common sense worked to convince an anti-vaxxer?

Facts, medical research, pics, videos, etc. won't change their thinking because they are thinking to begin with.

[shraby]

2. It's still worth a try.

[trotsky]

3. Agreed.

Even if you only save one child's life, it's worth it.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. We have a local family practice doc who accepts anti-vaxxers.

Virtually 100% of the children in her practice are fully vaccinated by age 5. The trick seems to be in listening, empathy, and avoiding a judgemental, confrontational approach and condescending attitude.

People who actually care about promoting vaccination might do well to study her techniques.

There was an article in our local paper about her a few months ago. If I can find a link, I'll post it.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Wow. Good work on her part.

On the larger issue of keeping vax current, universal, easy access to immunizations with no out-of-pocket cost and more public awareness of vax schedules will go a long way towards addressing this. ACA has helped with the former but there's still lots of work to do.

[Hekate]

4. In my region, a number of babies have had to be hospitalized; some have died.

They cough until they can't draw breath; the "whoop" is them trying to gasp air back into their lungs before the next spasm of coughing.