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(NEW YORK) — A New York mother is sharing details of her daughter’s battle with RSV, a respiratory virus that health officials warn may continue to spread this holiday season, along with the flu and COVID-19.

Anita Binayi-Ghiam said her 3-year-old daughter Ella began having difficulty breathing during the last week of October.

Though Ella tested negative at first for both COVID-19 and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, Binayi-Ghiam said she knew something was not right with her daughter.

She and her husband brought Ella to Cohen Children’s Medical Center on Oct. 30, where she was admitted and tested positive for RSV.

“It was mother’s intuition that told me to bring her in that Sunday,” Binayi-Ghiam said in a statement shared by Northwell Health, which operates the medical center. “It was so unlike Ella not to eat or drink. My husband and I just knew that something was wrong.”

Ella spent nearly one week in the intensive care unit on oxygen due to RSV, according to Binayi-Ghiam, who said her daughter has now recovered.

“It was horrendous,” she said. “I hope no parent has to go through it. It was terrifying.”

Health officials are now warning that not just RSV but also the flu virus and COVID-19 may be more likely to spread over the holiday season in what some call a “tripledemic.”

“We just had massive gatherings, the busiest travel days in years, and a large amount of circulating viruses all over the country,” Dr. Alok Patel, an ABC News medical contributor, said of the Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays, which occurred amid an already high number of cases of respiratory viruses in the United States.

In early November, the number of cases of RSV in the U.S. hit a two-year high, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Nov. 4, the CDC issued an official health advisory in response to the rise in respiratory infections in children.

Pediatric bed occupancy also remains the highest it has been in the last two years, with 78% of pediatric hospital beds filled, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Cohen Children’s Medical Center, where Binayi-Ghiam’s daughter was treated, said it has seen a nearly 50% increase in patients in its emergency department.

“These last two weeks in our emergency department have been the busiest we’ve seen in the past 10 years,” Dr. Matthew Harris, a pediatric emergency room physician and medical director of crisis management at CCMC, said on Nov. 23, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. “Our emergency department was up nearly 50%, our admissions were up 49% and our treat-and-release numbers were up over 50%.”

Experts have told ABC News that a combination of waning immunity to COVID and lack of exposure to other viruses, combined with gatherings indoors, is fueling a “perfect storm” leading to the rise in cases of flu, RSV and COVID-19.

While RSV affects children and adults, it’s particularly dangerous for kids under 1 year old and seniors 65 years old and older.

RSV is a contagious virus that can spread from viral respiratory droplets transferred from an infected person’s cough or sneeze; from direct contact with the virus, like kissing the face of a child with RSV; or from touching surfaces, like tables, doorknobs and crib rails, that have the virus on them and then touching your eyes, nose or mouth before hand-washing, according to the CDC.

People infected with RSV are usually contagious for three to eight days, but some infants can continue to spread the virus even after they stop showing symptoms for as long as four weeks, according to the CDC.

Health officials are advising parents to make sure their child’s vaccinations and their own are up to date, including flu shots and COVID-19. They say parents can help protect their kids from respiratory viruses by continuing to follow as much as possible the three Ws of the pandemic: wear a mask, wash your hands and watch your distance.

Infants and toddlers can usually recover at home with RSV unless they start to have difficulty breathing, are not eating or drinking, or appear more tired than usual, in which case parents should contact their pediatrician and/or take their child to the emergency room.

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(NEW YORK) — Parents can often feel a lot of pressure when it comes to feeding their babies.

Infant feeding tech Mallory Whitmore, a mother of two, is trying to ease some of that stress.

“My goal is that parents can feed their babies confidently, even if they’re using formula,” Whitmore told ABC News’ Good Morning America.

Whitmore is the creator behind the popular Instagram account “The Formula Mom,” where she first opened up about her own experience formula feeding and has since become a resource for other families who are looking for practical information and support.

Earlier this month, Whitmore also took on a new role as education lead for Bobbie, an organic infant formula brand.

“Like most parents, I had assumed that we would breastfeed and that’s just not how it turned out,” Whitmore said of her own experience as a mother of two. “I was desperate for information about how to formula feed safely and successfully. I couldn’t find any information that felt supportive, judgment free and research based.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusively breastfeeding infants for the first six months of their life before introducing nutritious complementary foods because of the health benefits of breastmilk, which can include reduced cancer risks for moms and immunity and nutritional benefits for babies.

However, health care providers said not all parents can or want to breastfeed and that a fed baby is what’s most important.

“We know that breast milk is the gold standard for infants, we can know that breast milk offers ideal nutrition,” said Whitmore. “But we can also acknowledge that it might not be the ideal choice for us based on the lived circumstances of new parenthood.”

Whitmore said there are many reasons why a family would choose formula.

Some parents take certain medications that prevent them from breastfeeding safely. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that only a few medications are not recommended while breastfeeding and physicians can make a case-by-case assessment.

Neurodivergent parents may dislike the sensation of breastfeeding. Others who might choose formula over breastfeeding include mastectomy cancer treatment survivors, adoptive families, working parents or parents who want their own “bodily autonomy” back after nine months of pregnancy.

Ultimately, Whitmore explained, parents don’t need a reason at all.

“There are really a lot of reasons why a family may end up formula feeding. It could be something as simple as that’s the choice that the family makes, that’s what they want to do,” said Whitmore. “I like to encourage folks that any reason, or no reason at all, is a valid reason for formula feeding. You don’t need to meet some sort of benchmark of suffering.”

Earlier this year, a baby formula shortage escalated to a national crisis due to a voluntary product recall of one of the country’s top baby formula producers.

As a result, nearly 50% of all baby formula in the U.S. was out of stock by early May, according to previous ABC News reporting. The crisis prompted an emergency response from business leaders and the White House, who tried to help alleviate supply issues by importing nearly 300 million bottles of baby formula from other countries.

As the crisis unfolded, and desperate parents faced increasingly empty supermarket shelves, Whitmore was there to help her followers navigate the ongoing situation.

“For a lot of babies, formula is their sole source of nutrition and there’s not another option,” she said. “It’s really been incredibly difficult, both logistically and also mentally and emotionally taxing for new parents who are already exhausted.”

While the situation has improved somewhat in recent months, the shortage is not over, and some parents are still struggling to find formula.

For those still looking for advice, Whitmore has a few specific tips, including recruiting other family members to help search for formulas and preparing the formula to make it last.

“Batching formula in a dedicated formula mixing pitcher, which is good in the fridge for up to 24 hours after you’ve prepared it,” said Whitmore. “This allows parents to pour exactly what they need for each individual feeding instead of making a big bottle and then throwing away whatever they don’t need.”

Whitmore added that it’s just as important for parent’s to put together a feeding plan ahead of their baby’s arrival, just as they would a birth plan, and lay out what’s important to them when thinking about formula and what circumstances they would consider using it.

“It’s also important to have a contingency plan and to not wait until you’re sleep deprived and hormonal and recovering from a major medical event to think through these choices and decisions,” she said. “If you can make those decisions and craft a plan when you still have more mental capacity before the baby gets there, that’s always going to be a better option.”

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(NEW YORK) — A mom of three is sharing a warning for other parents after she says her 10-month-old daughter was hospitalized with critical injuries after swallowing a water bead.

Folichia Mitchell of Berwick, Maine, said she bought a water beads activity kit at a local Target store in late October for her 8-year-old son, who she says is on the autism spectrum.

“From reading the package, I saw they’re good for sensory so I thought he’d really love them,” Mitchell told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “And he did. He thought they were really fun.”

Mitchell said she set her son up at the kitchen table with the water beads so they would be out of reach of his younger siblings.

Several days later, Mitchell said she noticed her daughter Kennedy began vomiting and became very lethargic.

Mitchell said she took her daughter to the hospital on Nov. 1, thinking she may have been having an allergic reaction to a newly-introduced food.

Instead, Mitchell said Kennedy was transported by ambulance to a larger children’s hospital, where tests showed she had a large, round object in her stomach, which was determined to be a water bead.

Mitchell said she and her husband were in complete shock that Kennedy had swallowed a water bead from their older child’s activity kit.

“We never saw her near them. Never saw her have one in her hand. Never saw her pick one up from the floor,” said Mitchell. “I was not worried about that at all. That never had crossed my mind the whole time that she was not feeling well and deteriorating.”

According to the National Poison Control Center, water beads are typically made of synthetic superabsorbent polymers and when exposed to water, can grow in size from the size of a marble to the size of a tennis ball.

While first designed as a product to help maintain soil moisture in plants, water beads are now used in baby diapers, incontinence products and menstrual pads to help absorb fluid, and are “marketed as children’s toys or therapies for children with sensory processing or autism spectrum disorders,” according the center.

If water beads are swallowed, they can expand in the body and cause life-threatening intestinal blockage, the center says.

The Consumer Products Safety Commission has issued warnings in the past on various water bead, or water ball, products, warning that they can expand inside a child’s body and cause intestinal blockage and damage.

In Kennedy’s case, Mitchell said doctors performed a first surgery in early November to remove the water bead from her body, but damage to her intestines was already done.

The next four surgeries Kennedy underwent were due to infections in her body that were caused by intestinal blockage, according to Mitchell.

Mitchell said doctors told her three different times over the past month that they weren’t sure if Kennedy was going to survive.

As Mitchell learned more about what happened to Kennedy, she said she began posting videos on TikTok about what happened to help inform other parents.

Mitchell said she only saw a warning about choking on the Chuckle & Roar Ultimate Water Beads Kit she purchased at Target.

According to an image of the product displayed on Chuckle & Roar’s YouTube page, the front of the kit says it is for ages 4 and older, and a warning label located on the upper right corner of the kit says it is a choking hazard, warning, “Small parts, not for children under 3 yrs.”

“I do think if they had been labeled properly, and said, ‘If ingested, could cause death could cause blockage, seek medical attention,’ any of those warnings, then I may not have even bought them for my 8-year-old,” she said. “Bringing something into your home and purchasing it from the store, you have the right to know what to expect or what the dangers or cautions are of anything, and I didn’t get that opportunity.”

Target told GMA in a statement that it has removed Chuckle & Roar Ultimate Water Beads Kit from store shelves and its website while it reviews the situation.

“We’re aware of this tragic situation and send our heartfelt sympathy to this child and her family,” Joe Unger, a Target spokesperson, said in a statement. “Target requires our vendors to comply with all product safety standards, and all state, federal and local laws. We have removed the product from stores and Target.com while we review the situation with the vendor.”

Chuckle & Roar products are sold exclusively at Target, according to the company’s website.

Buffalo Games, the owner of Chuckle & Roar, told GMA the company is working to determine “if any action is needed” after learning about Kennedy’s situation.

Buffalo Games said in a statement, “It was recently reported to Buffalo Games that an infant required surgery after ingesting a water bead from the Ultimate Water Beads kit. Buffalo Games investigated and confirmed with Bureau Veritas, a leading third-party testing laboratory, that the Ultimate Water Beads product does meet all current ASTM and CPSIA standards for toy safety in the United States, and has all required warnings and information on package, including a Choking Hazard and that the product is specified for Ages 4+. However, as consumer safety is paramount to Buffalo Games, we are in the process of evaluating the situation and determining if any action is needed.”

The statement continued, “We wish Ms. Mitchell’s daughter a speedy and full recovery.”

Thomas Bosworth, a lawyer representing Mitchell, told GMA he believes the risk of harm from water beads for children is so great there is “no good reason” products containing them should be on store shelves.

“If you’re a company and you’re going to be selling products like this, you have an obligation to know everything that you need to know about those products and whether they’re dangerous, especially to children,” said Bosworth. “It’s not enough to say something is a choking hazard. There is a difference between choking on something and swallowing a bead that’s this big and it almost killing your child.”

According to Mitchell, Kennedy is no longer in the intensive care unit and is now breathing on her own after initially being placed on a ventilator.

She said she is not sure when Kennedy will be discharged from the hospital, or how long-lasting her injuries may be.

The National Poison Control Center advises anyone who has swallowed a water bead or has a loved one who has done so should reach out to Poison Control immediately by going to Poison.org online or calling 1-800-222-1222.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says warning signs for parents to look for include abdominal pain, constipation, drooling, vomiting, refusal to eat, wheezing and complaints of something stuck in the throat or chest. The AAP also warns that children may place water beads in their ears, for which they say to also seek immediate treatment.

Mitchell said she hopes that by sharing her family’s story, other parents learn the lesson she has — to do their own research before bringing a toy into their home.

“Regardless of what a product is going to visually tell me as a warning, I’m never, ever going to trust that,” said Mitchell. “I’m always now going to do more research just to bring things into my home because of how terrifying it feels that these were just right on the shelf. I grabbed them effortlessly and took them home.”

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