Mom's heartfelt message about vaccinations goes viral

QUEENSLAND, Australia (KTRK) -- An Australian mother's message about vaccinations is going viral. The original post has more than 7,100 shares on Facebook, as of this morning.

In a video posted to Gold Coast Health, an Australian government medical and health organization, a woman named Cormit Avital from Queensland describes how she contracted whooping cough, also known as pertussis, during the last weeks of her pregnancy and how she passed it onto her newborn baby, Eva.

Cormit refused to be immunized against the disease in 2008.

"It's been a nightmare," she said. "I've been a very healthy pregnant woman, no problems, no complications, worked out, went to the gym every day, ate very healthy, no deficiencies, had a natural birth and somehow through the last two weeks of my pregnancy I managed to get whooping cough."

Though Cormit says she got over the cough quickly, Eva didn't and within two weeks, she says, the cough got "horror movie" scary. She recalled, "(Eva) coughing to the point of going blue, flopping in my hands, can't breathe, running to the hospital, she's then better and then a day later, back into the hospital again, a night later, another apnea which she is not breathing for three minutes."

Cormit added, "It's just so hard to watch - your little baby, just a tiny little thing. They go red, from red they go blue sometimes they go a bit black and for a moment you think they're dead in your hands. They flop. A lot of suffering for a little tiny little cute thing you love so much."

Cormit continued that she was offered the whooping cough vaccination in 2008, but didn't want it then.

She explained, "Being the healthy, fit organic woman that I am, I said, 'Leave me alone, I don't need this crap,' and even me, the bulletproof lady that's never been to a doctor, traveled the world and felt healthy, I got the whooping cough, and I got over it very quick - it was nothing for me, but she is into week four, and yeah, every hour I've got to stay here, watch her going blue and give her oxygen, watch her cry, watch her having a hard time eating.

Cormit said, "She's my only child, and my first, and if I could turn back time, I would have protected myself, so that's my message."

At this point, the video has garnered more than 3,000 likes and more than 7,100 shares.

Watch the full video in the player above.