A mum has warned parents after her 10-month-old daughter was rushed to hospital after displaying signs of a "bad cold".
Annabelle began coughing and wheezing, which her mum, Kate Skelton, assumed was just another bad cold. However, as her breathing became more laboured and doctors refused to admit her to hospital, she became increasingly worried.
The first sign that something was wrong came when Annabelle began to find breathing difficult. Her chest was contracting, she had rapid breathing, and she was getting increasingly more lethargic.
Kate said: "My gut was just screaming - this is not right."
Speaking about when she was sent home from the hospital, she told Express.co.uk: "My husband and I were so alarmed by the speed of her breathing that we sat up with her all night, counting her heart rate."
But it was not until their third trip to A&E that Annabelle was admitted. By that point, she was rapidly deteriorating.
Kate said: "It was literally in a second. In the blink of an eye, it was so fast."
Annabelle was put on a ventilator and transferred in an ambulance to intensive care at King's College Hospital in London.
The mum added: "Watching her fight for her life, her tiny body covered in wires and being unable to hold her or touch her was terrifying.
"There were so, so many wires - in her mouth, her nose, her hands, her legs, her fingers, her toes. She also had a canular and a catheter."
The doctors said Annabelle had bronchiolitis, a chest infection most commonly caused by the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) that causes a cough with a lot of mucus, making it a struggle to breathe.
Kate said: "I'd never heard of the condition, even though it is something eight out of 10 children will have had by their second birthday."
When Annabelle was taken off the ventilator after a week, she had no voice. "She was crying, but it was a silent cry … She was really, really sobbing, but with no noise, and it was just really gut-wrenching.
"It just was so awful. And I felt like she had sort of gone into hospital this happy baby and just come out completely different."
Annabelle is now seven and has been in hospital almost every winter. Kate said she worries every year as cold and flu season approaches.
She advised other parents who might be worried, saying: "Look for if your child is working really hard to breathe, if their chest is sucking in, if their chest is contracting, if their breathing is laboured, if there's fast breathing.
"It's all about knowing those signs because if you don't know what you're looking out for, you can't spot it."
Parents are experts in their children and know what's normal for them, she said, encouraging parents to "keep pushing" if they think something is wrong.
She said: "I wish I'd known how serious bronchiolitis and RSV can be and how it can just look like a simple cold … how vital it is to be vigilant, how vital it is to follow your gut, and how vital it is to really push and advocate."
"I just thought she had a cold. I had no idea she was going to end up fighting for her life in intensive care."
Erika Radford, head of health advice at Asthma + Lung UK, said most of the time, RSV symptoms are very mild and can be managed at home.
She said: "Like most other colds and viruses, RSV starts with a blocked or runny nose and can progress to cause a cough, fever and sometimes breathing difficulties.
"However, some children do develop more severe symptoms. RSV can sometimes lead to bronchiolitis, an infection of the smaller airways in the lungs.
"Warning signs to look out for in your children include if they are finding it difficult to feed or eat, they are breathing more quickly, they have noisy breathing (wheezing) or seem very tired.
She advised any parents who were worried about their child having RSV or bronchiolitis to speak to their doctor.
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