Mother begs parents to vaccinate their children after losing her little daughter

A Serbian mother, Dragana Petrovic, shared the journey of her two-year-old daughter’s struggles with measles stressing on the importance of vaccinating children.

The dejected mother contacted Perth-based organization Light for Riley who shared the story on their Facebook page on June 13, 2018.

Dragana pleaded with parents to immunize their children after she lost her daughter on April 4 this year.

Nadja was diagnosed with autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 1, known as Whitaker syndrome.

The mother said that her daughter had issues with her internal organs due to the condition since she turned one. The little one had been in and out of hospital “a few times a week,” she told Yahoo7.

23-year-old Dragana revealed that Nadja could not get common vaccines like MMR, an immunization against mumps, measles, and rubella, due to her illness.

Describing her daughter as “playful” and “energetic,” she said the little one played all day with her older sister, Anastasija.

The family knew that the condition Nadja had was not life-threatening.

Unfortunately, Dragana and her family’s world turned “upside down” when the little girl was admitted to the intensive care and isolation unit on January 6, 2018.

The family could not get a room of their own and a nine-month-old boy was admitted into the same room. Three days later, Dragan found out that the boy was infected with the measles.

On January 12, Nadja became sick with the disease too and her mother “knew that she would get it but in the depths of my soul I hoped she wouldn’t.”

The girl’s condition worsened and she ‘drowned in a dream from which she never woke up.’ Her struggle continued for three months and she began to have lung and respiratory problems.

Dragana told in her post that Nadja’s heart stopped and her left lung ruptured on April 3. The following day, ‘she was in heart failure’ and despite all the measures by the doctors, she left the world quietly.

She wanted to share her story hoping to educate other parents about the importance of vaccinating their children. She added that every child had a right to be protected from infectious disease.

Dragana reached out to Light for Riley for support and to spread her message as she felt her daughter’s story was similar to Riley Hughes in whose honor the organization was set up.

Hailing from West Australia, baby Hughes, died in 2015 from a whooping cough. The organization strives to create awareness for parents to immunize their children.

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