Baby Fights for Life After Being Infected With COVID and RSV at Same Time

A 4-month-old baby is battling both COVID-19 and a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in an intensive care unit after a cough escalated into severe symptoms within days.

Hudson Hooten began coughing on Saturday night. By Wednesday he was hospitalized at Children's Medical Center Dallas, Texas.

"He was projectile vomiting," mom Brooke Hooten told FOX4. "He was coughing. He was crying for an hour straight."

Doctors told the family their son got the last ICU bed available. He is now breathing with the help of oxygen.

"He's doing a lot better," Brooke Hooten continued. "I feel like he doesn't look as sick anymore because he's been on oxygen. They've been giving him fluids."

Dr. Seth Kaplan, a Frisco-based pediatrician and president of the Texas Pediatric Society, said the hospital is "at absolute capacity" and is "filled with kids with various respiratory diseases."

The pediatrician said the record number of pediatric hospitalizations in North Texas is very concerning. He is urging parents to take every precaution to help stop the spread of the contagious delta variant.

"The combination of RSV and COVID together has certainly proven to be very, very challenging, especially that's where we'll see our younger kids who get COVID have trouble is when they have both," he said. "And on that note, we're worried about what's coming later in the season when influenza makes its comeback."

"The most important thing for the kids under age 12 is going to be to wear that mask," he added. "If you are eligible to get vaccinated, please get vaccinated.

Brooke Hooten, a registered medical assistant, and her husband are not currently vaccinated against COVID-19, and nobody in their family has tested positive for the virus.

"I've had multiple doctors at Children's tell me like you need to get vaccinated," she said. "And I'm like, I get it. I do. But like if it comes down to saving my kid's life, sure. I mean, I'll get vaccinated."

Last month, a 30-year-old Florida woman with COVID-19 wound up in the intensive care unit after holding her newborn baby just once, before dying just days later.

Kristen McMullen gave birth to her daughter via emergency C-section on July 27. She was able to cradle her newborn, named Summer Reign, for a few minutes before she was rushed off to the ICU, McMullen's aunt Melissa Syverson said.

McMullen developed COVID-19 symptoms about three weeks before her due date and was later hospitalized with coronavirus-related pneumonia, Syverson wrote on a GoFundMe page.

She was sent home after four days but returned within 48 hours struggling to breathe and concerned for her unborn baby, Syverson wrote.

From the ICU, McMullen was able to speak with her husband and see her baby over FaceTime, Syverson said, but communication was cut off when her condition worsened and she was put on a CPAP machine. She died on Friday.