A GOLD Coast mother who refused the whooping cough vaccine during pregnancy went on to catch the potentially deadly disease and pass it onto her brand new baby girl.

The mother, who has gone public in a video posted on the Gold Coast Health website to warn others, said she had refused the vaccine because she was a healthy “organic” kind of woman.

“I was a healthy pregnant woman, worked out, went to gym, ate very healthy, had a natural birth and somehow in the last two weeks of my pregnancy I managed to get whooping cough, I didn’t know,” she said.

media_camera The Gold Coast mother is calling on mothers to ensure they get vaccinated. Source: Facebook Gold Coast Health

After the birth she went to the doctor about a persistent cough and found out she had whooping cough, that had been passed onto her baby daughter Eva.

“Eva was diagnosed with whooping cough and it is a nightmare,” she said.

“She was a bit coughy, but within two weeks the cough became very scary, a horror movie, turning blue, going floppy in my hands, running to hospital,” she said.

“She ended up in intensive care with a baby that just coughs and coughs and coughs and it’s so hard to watch your tiny little thing they go red, they go blue and sometimes they go black and then for a moment you think they are dead in your hands, they flop. A lot of suffering for a tiny little thing you love so much.

“I was offered the injection in week 28, being the healthy, fit organic woman that I am I said “leave me alone”, I said “I don’t need this crap”.

“I got over it very quick, it was not it was nothing for me, but she is into week four and every hour I have to stay here watch her going blue, watch her go blue, watch her cry, and give her oxygen. She is my only child and if I could turn back time I would have protected myself, so that’s my message,” she said.

media_camera The Queensland mother is now regretting her decision not to get the jab.

Australia is in the grip of a whooping cough epidemic with 22,516 cases recorded nationally last year and 5561 cases recorded so far this year.

In April last year, free whooping cough boosters were introduced throughout Australia for pregnant women after UK studies proved the boosters cut infant deaths from whooping cough by 90 per cent.

Originally published as A grave lesson for anti-vax mum