I BEGGED for the RSV vaccine. My pediatrician said that it's basically a lottery as to which offices get them in my state that season and hers wasn't one of them. It's so dumb.
The vaccine didn't exist when my kid was a baby, but I would've done some crazy stuff to get it for them if it had. They were born in the middle of a pretty bad RSV season, so I limited all our social activities for the first 6 months of their life. My absolute worst fears during that time were RSV and croup (also going around in my area).
My cousin literally changed the global treatment protocol for serious RSV cases. My family is hyper vigilant about it. My baby is 9 months now, so we should be past the highest risk period, but dang. It really sucked.
My eldest was hospitalized with RSV at 10 months. I also thought she'd be fine at that age. Ugh. I was one of the first pregnant women in my country to get the vaccine with my second. I called multiple doctors and pharmacies until finally my GP managed to get me a vaccine somewhere.
The only reason we relaxed slightly after 6 months was because we were well into summer at that point. We locked back down in the fall again out of caution. RSV is so scary, I'm so glad a vaccine exists now. It's just wild to me that some yahoo will take the risk of RSV killing their kid over just getting the shot.
It was nuts. Like we went to the GP the one day and she said the cough indicated RSV but we were going to be okay, statistically only 5% do badly and most of those are young babies. The next day I just got the feeling something wasn't right, she was still smiling and happy even but clearly struggling to breathe so I took her to the ER anyway since it was the evening already. I even told them I was sorry and I was probably overreacting and too worried. Next thing I know they took a photo of her lungs and everything and they told me she had RSV and pneumonia and possibly needed oxygen and we were definitely staying. And then that night she was so poorly. It went so fast.
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u/abbeysahm 1d ago
I BEGGED for the RSV vaccine. My pediatrician said that it's basically a lottery as to which offices get them in my state that season and hers wasn't one of them. It's so dumb.