An Australian mom's heartbreaking video of her 5-week-old daughter – along with a plea for parents to vaccinate their children – has gone viral.
In an Aug. 22 Facebook post, Sandra Tee of Sydney shared the video of her baby girl, Heidi, wearing an oxygen mask in the hospital.
"This video may distress some people, but I'm sharing to show just how scary and dangerous whooping cough is to babies who are too young to be vaccinated," Tee wrote. "This is my 5-week-old baby during an episode where she chokes and stops breathing. Babies rely on herd immunity to keep them safe, and unfortunately, we cannot achieve that without high vaccination rates."
She added, "Whooping cough is not always a loud obvious cough. The scary symptom for babies is when they don't cough but silently choke and turn blue/purple from lack of oxygen. If we weren't in hospital and sitting watching our baby 24/7, the outcome would be fatal."
Tee told Inside Edition that Heidi caught the disease after her 3-year-old brother contracted it at day care.
"Heidi is too young to be vaccinated and relies on others not to spread this disease," Tee told Inside Edition. "If everyone, at any age, is vaccinated, we may eradicate certain illnesses altogether."
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