An Australian couple lost their bundle of joy when their newborn suddenly fell sick and died after being kissed by someone with a cold sore.
Everything was fine when Sarah Pugh, of Mackay city in Queensland, brought her newborn daughter Eloise home from the hospital, 7News Brisbane reported.
But a week later, Pugh noticed Eloise was barely eating and began losing weight. So the mother sought help from a visiting midwife.
"She said that's far too much [weight] loss for a newborn so she said we had to go straight to hospital," Pugh told 7News.
It was determined little Eloise somehow contracted the herpes simplex virus just days after she was born. Doctors say it was likely transmitted when she was kissed by a visitor who had a cold sore.
"We were pretty...I was pretty shocked that a cold sore had done this," Pugh told the station.
Racing to save the infant's life, Eloise was airlifted to a hospital in Brisbane, Australia, where she was placed on a heart and lung machine.
But Eloise succumbed to the virus and died in her mom's arms. She was 24 days old.
Though there have been cases of babies developing a herpes infection, fatalities from it are rare.
"This is one of those many occasions where prevention really is the only cure," Dr. Gino Pecoraro, an obstetrician, told the station. That includes covering cold sores with a band aid and abstaining from kissing children and babies.
Pugh, who has three other children, advises parents to take extra precautions around newborns so they don't experience the same loss.
"I possibly couldn't let another family go through the heartache that we went through," she told 7News.
