Greg and Catherine Hughes welcomed their newborn baby, Riley, into the world on February 13, 2015. They were excited to bring their son home to meet his sister, Olivia, and they had so many visions of them growing up together.
But three weeks after birth, Riley began coughing. His parents thought that it was just a cold, but they took him to see a doctor anyway. They were told that Riley was fine.
Then Riley began coughing loudly, and he became so lethargic that his parents immediately rushed him to the hospital. He was diagnosed with whooping cough and had been suffering from it for a while at that point. Sadly, he passed away when he was only 32 days old.
Riley’s parents are using the death of their son to promote vaccination for children. Women can get their babies vaccinated for whooping cough while the baby is still in the womb, which would prevent them from having to endure what Riley went through.
Through their Facebook page called Light for Riley, the Hughes family shared this video of what Riley’s cough sounded like so that more parents could learn to recognize the signs of whooping cough.
The cough that killed Riley Hughes*Warning – contains content that some may find distressing*These are the final videos of our beautiful son Riley who passed away from whooping cough on the 17th of March, 2015.I have always kept these videos to myself, as it makes my blood run cold listening to my beautiful boy cough like that. But we are sharing this in the hopes that it will convince just one more pregnant Mum to protect their baby from this disease. I wish I had known about pregnancy vaccination when I was pregnant with Riley.In the beginning, Riley didn’t have a “whoop” sound in his cough, but it certainly developed once he was in hospital. If your newborn baby has a cough, and is too young to be vaccinated, please get them checked out by a doctor! Early intervention CAN help.I loved being Riley’s Mum for those four weeks. I wish it were longer. Please share to help ensure no more babies die from this disease, which I hope one day will be relegated to the history books.- Riley’s Mum x
Posted by Light for Riley on Wednesday, January 6, 2016
(via BuzzFeed)
The Hughes family hopes to positively promote the need to have children vaccinated. They wish that they had known about their options before it was too late.