As a 2007 World Champion and 2008 Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast, Shawn Johnson East knew a thing or two about tumbling. However, before she had children, she didn’t completely expect the rough and tumble that respiratory syncytial virus—otherwise known as RSV—would bring. And now the 32-year-old mother of three is helping mothers-to-be better see the real threat of RSV.
When you are pregnant with your first child, you may not think fully about RSV because there’s kind of a lot of other stuff to deal with and consider. Plus, when it comes to respiratory viruses, RSV hasn’t gotten the same attention the COVID-19 coronavirus. In other words, knowledge of RSV hasn’t gone quite as viral, so to speak. Johnson East’s first known encounter with RSV was when her first child—daughter Drew Hazel who is now 4—got infected with RSV as an infant. “She handled it pretty well,” Johnson East recalled. “She was mildly lethargic but it never developed into something that we couldn’t deal with.”
Drew’s infection occurred right around the time Johnson East’s second child—her first son Jett James—was born. East Johnson and her husband, former NFL player Andrew East, then kept Jett separate from Drew throughout Drew’s RSV infection. “Jett, who is now 3. went this first round unscathed,” said Johnson East.
An Emergency Hospital Visit Due To RSV
Note that Johnson East said “first round.” Like an antagonist in a horror movie, RSV would return. “When he was six months old, Jett got RSV and it turned ugly,” Johnson East recounted what happened during the RSV peak season in 2021. “He woke up in the middle of the night having a lot of difficulty breathing.” In fact, Jett was having so much trouble getting air into his lungs that he was demonstrating retractions—which are when the muscles between the ribs are working so hard they get pulled inwards during each inhale. When you see your baby having such respiratory retractions, it certainly isn’t one of those oh-look-that’s-so-cute situations. It’s an emergency situation.
“Jett ended up going to the hospital and getting tested and confirmed for RSV,” Johnson East recalled. “He received oxygen and steroids and was there for 24 hour total. We were very lucky in the grand scheme of things. The people who took care of him were professionals and walked through everything with us.”
That experience certainly changed Johnson East’s understanding of RSV and what the virus could do. She posted on social media about what had happened with Jett. “When people at Sanofi saw my posts, they reached out to me,” said Johnson East. They shared with her the option of Beyfortus, which is the brand name for nirsevimab-alip. This is an injection of antibodies against RSV that babies under one year of age (as opposed to adults under one year of age) can receive prior to their first RSV season. Some kids at higher risk can receive the injection up to 24 months of age if protection during their second RSV season is needed. Beyfortus received approval for these uses from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July 2023.
When Johnson East became pregnant again last year, she wanted to be more ready for RSV. That prompted various conversations between Johnson East and doctors. “In December of 2023, close to my delivery, my doctor presented Beyfortus as a highly recommended option,” said Johnson East. “You can be careful and quarantine. But my kids were 3 and 2 and keeping a 2 or 3 year old away from a newborn baby was going to be near impossible.” That’s a tough balancing act—even for someone who won the gold medal for the balance beam at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
Different Ways RSV Can Spread
There are various ways of catching RSV. One is through respiratory droplets carrying the virus. Another is through direct contact, such as shaking hands. That’s why you should always wash your hands thoroughly before and after shaking hands with your baby. And tell your baby to elbow bump other babies rather than shake hands. A third possibility is touching something that’s been contaminated with the virus. The virus can live for hours on a surface that’s not been disinfected. All three of the above possibilities can bring the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth, which essentially are the revolving doors into your body.
Once you are infected, you can remain contagious for up to four weeks. You typically are most contagious during the first week when you have symptoms but can continue to shed the virus for weeks without being symptomatic.
Symptoms tend to appear four to six days after being exposed to the virus. For those with strong and more experienced immune systems—like older kids and adults—these symptoms are typically cold-like symptoms. While infants and older adults frequently do have milder cold-like symptoms, they are at greater risk for more severe and potentially life-threatening lung complications like pneumonia and bronchiolitis.
An Antibody Injection To Protect Against RSV
So Johnson East went ahead and chose to have her third child, Barrett ‘Bear’ Madison, receive Beyfortus soon after he was born. This extra protection gave her the comfort that Bear could bear the brunt of the RSV season. Bear did get through his first RSV season—which typically starts in the Fall, peaks in the Winter and ends in the Spring—without incident. The whole family made it to Paris to watch the Summer Olympics and see the different carousels in the French city, which is easy to do since there are so many carousels there.
Johnson may have won season eight of Dancing with the Stars in May 2009, but she’s learned that being a mother is no easy dance. “It’s a millions times harder being a mom than being an Olympic athlete,” East Johnson related. “When I was gymnast, I was just dealing with myself. I also knew how to hire people around me, specialists to fix any problems.” She explained how it is easy to control everything when its just you. “With kids, you can’t control everything,” she added. “These little humans are not going to do everything you tell them to do. You have to foster their personalities and their dreams.”
The other thing she hasn’t been able to control has been all the respiratory viruses that have been circulating around her. Her first two children’s introduction to the world overlapped with the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, which were, well, the first two years of the pandemic. Then there were the surges of other respiratory viruses like RSV after people began shedding COVID precautions as if they were soiled underwear.
“Even pre-COVID, there’s a lot of scariness going on with being a mom in general,” explained Johnson East. “Your are worried about your baby getting all kinds of things, even the common cold. Before learning more about respiratory viruses, I wasn’t able to rationally judge the difference. It was all scary.”
Of course, being a mother is not about being oh-my-goodness-what’s-going-to-happen-next worried all the time. She has cherished the opportunity to be a mother, not just once but thrice. “I keep thinking, ‘I brought someone into the world,’” she said. “Babies truly are the greatest gift. I can’t communicate all that it’s meant.”
What she is trying to communicate now is what can be done about RSV. She has been working with Sanofi to raise awareness about this viral threat. This has included speaking at conferences, doing interviews and hosting a brunch with mothers and pediatricians. “Some of the people have been shocked that they didn’t know about RSV,” said Johnson East. “There’s a million different things going on about their kids, birthdays, to-dos, ear infections, colds. A lot of moms are inundated with information and do not know what to look for.” All of that is indeed a challenging balancing act. But if you talk to right people—such as real medical professionals who bring scientific evidence behind what they say rather than just some dude or dudette on social media—that can help you and your child breathe more easily.
