Washington: A Canadian woman who had declined to have her children immunised against pertussis, better known as whooping cough, has changed her position now that all seven of her children have come down with the disease.

Yes, Tara Hills was stuck in isolation at her Ottawa home for more than a week with her sick children and her regrets about refusing to vaccinate them against the highly contagious respiratory disease. Whooping cough, a bacterial infection, causes violent, uncontrollable coughing and is best known for the telltale sound victims make as they try to draw breath. Occasionally, it can be fatal, especially in infants less than a year old, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

A nurse prepares a shot of vaccine. Credit:Craig Abraham

The Hills children completed a course of antibiotics and were released from isolation on Tuesday.

"I set out to prove that we were right," Hills said in an interview with The Washington Post, "and in the process found out how wrong we were."