RSV in a newborn

A few years ago, at 3 weeks old my little Cooper came down with RSV. It started out as just some congestion then just got worse and worse for a few days when I decided to take him to the doctor. We went to our regular pediatrician's office which is in the hospital. They thought he was working too hard to breathe so they sent us down to Emergency. They did a whole respiratory panel and he was positive for RSV. Nobody was really clear about how serious it was. I was shocked to hear that we would be admitted and have to stay for at least 24 hours.

Little did I know we would have to spend 4 nights in the hospital including 2 in Pediatric Intensive Care. I must have brought him in at just the right time because he really declined after we went to the Emergency Department and then to the Pediatric Inpatient floor. He was even worse by the morning so we were moved to the PICU. Covid was just starting to come into the US, I'm thankful this was before everything shut down. In the PICU he was put on high flow air and I couldn't breastfeed for about 36 hours. He was sustained on just IV fluids during that time.

I'm interested to learn more about breastfeeding and situations like this but I believe we had great care and in hindsight I don't think there was anything different they should have done. You know how us lactation people can be skeptical though & The hardest part was not knowing how long this was going to last. I pumped during that time and then he was able to return to breastfeeding soon after coming off of the high flow. It wore him out at first but he kept getting better and better. After one more night in the regular pediatric inpatient unit we were ready to go home.

What a crazy time. Ever since this experience he has been super healthy.

Anyone else experienced RSV with a newborn?

Would love to hear your story! Thank you for reading ours.