Olympic gold medal gymnast Shawn Johnson opens up on family battle against virus that hospitalized her son

Shawn Johnson remembers the nighttime she took her babe lad to an exigency room. 

The American gymnastics leader who won Olympic golden connected the equilibrium beam astatine the 2008 Beijing games was abruptly the parent of a precise young patient. 

"He was 1. It took a crook for the worst precise quickly. We ended up successful the ER. He was struggling with his breathing," Johnson told Fox News Digital. 

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The United States' Shawn Johnson, left, and compatriot Nastia Liukin basal connected the podium aft the women's equilibrium beam last of the creator gymnastics lawsuit of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games successful Beijing Aug. 19, 2008.   (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

Her son, Jett James East, had respiratory syncytial microorganism (RSV), a highly contagious microorganism that infects the lungs and breathing passages. Her first-born, girl Drew Hazel East, caught a lighter mentation of it astatine a young property but ne'er needed to spell to the hospital.

Then, erstwhile Johnson got large with her 3rd child, she learned of a troubling timeline.

"I recovered retired that helium was owed successful highest RSV play astir the holidays. I inactive had 2 babies astatine home, a batch of radical coming implicit for the holidays," she said. 

Johnson was staring down an urgent ngo to code the microorganism plaguing her children.

A person she had met connected societal media, Dr. Mona Amin, became a root of guidance alongside her family's mean pediatrician. 

"RSV tin look truthful antithetic successful everyone. … It presented precise otherwise successful her 2 antithetic children," Amin told Fox News Digital. 

HIDDEN INFECTION KILLS MILLIONS OF CHILDREN EACH YEAR AS DOCTORS WARN OF OVERLOOKED SYMPTOMS

USA's Shawn Johnson successful enactment during a golden medal triumph successful the women's equilibrium beam last astatine National Indoor Stadium successful Beijing, China. (Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

"We archetypal met past year, and we conscionable truly connected implicit business, motherhood, asking maine questions connected the broadside astir the aesculapian stuff."

Johnson says Amin gave her proposal that was akin to her pediatrician's.

One of the solutions that came retired of meetings with some was the usage of a cause called Beyfortus, an antibody injection fixed to newborns and young children to assistance dainty RSV. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration July 17, 2023. 

Johnson's connection to immoderate different parents acrophobic astir RSV affecting their kid is to "talk to your pediatrician."

"Education is truthful overmuch amended than nary astatine all," she added.

The erstwhile gymnastics prima has travel retired of her family's conflict against RSV with a caller obsession for warring disconnected illnesses successful her children. It has adjacent changed her speechmaking habits.

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Former Olympic gymnast and 2008 golden medalist Shawn Johnson (Courtesy of Shawn Johnson)

"I utilized to work ‘Harry Potter’ novels, present I work parenting novels. I work each astir viruses and psychiatry. The biggest manner accommodation for maine is that it's my occupation to support them. And I request to limb myself with knowledge," Johnson said. 

"The magnitude of attraction if you were a pro jock oregon an jock that you enactment into your assemblage successful your vocation is the aforesaid magnitude of attraction that you should enactment toward your children. No kid is the same. We've talked astir this a lot. Every azygous kid has antithetic needs. … I deliberation it's our occupation arsenic parents to truly find what those are."

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