Former Olympian Shawn Johnson East shares son’s harrowing RSV experience

As a 2007 world champion and 2008 Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast, Shawn Johnson East knew a thing or two about tumbling. However, before having children, she didn’t quite expect what respiratory syncytial virus – otherwise known as RSV – would bring. And now the 32-year-old mother of three is helping expectant mothers better see the true threat of RSV.

When you are pregnant with your first child, you may not fully think about RSV because there are so many other things to deal with and consider. Plus, when it comes to respiratory viruses, RSV hasn’t gotten the same attention as the COVID-19 coronavirus. In other words, knowledge of RSV hasn’t gone viral, so to speak. Johnson East’s first known encounter with RSV was when her first child — daughter Drew Hazel who is now 4 — contracted RSV as an infant. “She handled it pretty well,” Johnson East recalled. “She was a little lethargic, but it never turned into something we couldn’t handle.”

Drew’s infection happened right around the time Johnson East’s second child was born — her first son Jett James. East Johnson and her husband, former NFL player Andrew East, then kept Jett separated from Drew throughout Drew’s RSV infection. “Jett, who is now 3. got through this first round unscathed,” Johnson East said.

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 got ugly,” Johnson East recounted what happened during peak RSV season in 2021. “He woke up in the middle of the night having a lot of trouble breathing.” In fact, Jett was having so much trouble getting air into his lungs that he was demonstrating retractions — which occur when the muscles between the ribs are working so hard that they pull inward with each inhalation. When you see your baby having such gasps, it’s certainly not one of those oh-look-so-cute situations. It is an emergency situation.

“Jett ended up going to the hospital and being tested and confirmed for RSV,” Johnson East recalled. “He received oxygen and steroids and was there for 24 hours in total. We were very lucky in the grand scheme of things. The people who took care of him were professional and went through everything with us.”

This experience certainly changed Johnson East’s understanding of RSV and what the virus could do. She posted on social media about what had happened to Jett. “When the people at Sanofi saw my posts, they contacted me,” Johnson East said. They shared with him the option of Beyfortus, which is the brand name for nirsevimab-alip. This is an injection of RSV antibodies that babies under one year old (as opposed to adults under one year old) can get before their first RSV season. Some children at higher risk may receive the shot up to 24 months of age if protection is needed during their second RSV season. Beyfortus received approval for these uses from the US Food and Drug Administration in July 2023.

When Johnson East became pregnant again last year, she wanted to be more prepared for RSV. This prompted various conversations between Johnson East and the doctors. “In December of 2023, around my due date, my doctor introduced Beyfortus as a highly recommended option,” Johnson East said. “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 would be almost impossible.” That’s a tough balancing act—even for someone who won the gold medal on the balance beam at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

RSV can spread in different ways

There are different ways to catch RSV. One is through respiratory droplets that carry the virus. Another is through direct contact, such as shaking hands. This is why you should always wash your hands thoroughly before and after shaking hands with your child. And tell your child to elbow other babies instead of shaking hands. A third possibility is touching something that has been contaminated with the virus. The virus can live for hours on a surface that has not been disinfected. All three of the above possibilities can bring the virus into your eyes, nose, or mouth, which are essentially the revolving doors in your body.

Once infected, you can remain contagious for up to four weeks. You are usually most contagious during the first week when you have symptoms, but you can continue to shed the virus for weeks without being symptomatic.

Symptoms tend to appear four to six days after exposure to the virus. For those with strong and more experienced immune systems—such as older children and adults—these symptoms are usually cold-like symptoms. While infants and older adults often have milder cold-like symptoms, they are at greater risk for more serious and potentially life-threatening lung complications such as pneumonia and bronchiolitis.

An injection of antibodies to protect against RSV

So Johnson East went ahead and chose to have her third child, Barrett ‘Bear’ Madison, receive Beyfortus right after he was born. That extra protection gave her the comfort that Bear could handle the brunt of the RSV season. Bear made it through his first RSV season — which typically begins in the fall, peaks in the winter, and ends in the spring — without incident. The whole family went to Paris to watch the Summer Olympics and check out the different carousels in the French city, which is easy to do since there are so many carousels there.

Johnson may have won the eighth season of Dancing with the Stars in May 2009, but she’s learned that being a mom is no easy feat. “It’s a million times harder to be a mom than to be an Olympic athlete,” East Johnson shared. “When I was a gymnast, I only took care of myself. I also knew how to hire people around me, specialists to fix any problem.” She explained how it’s easy to control everything when it’s just you. “With kids, you can’t control everything,” she added. “These little people are not going to do everything you tell them to do. You have to encourage their personality 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. The introduction of her first two children into 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 was the rise of other respiratory viruses like RSV as people started shedding COVID precautions like they were dirty underwear.

“Even before COVID, there’s a lot of fear in being a mother in general,” Johnson East explained. “You’re worried about your baby getting all sorts of things, even the common cold. Before learning more about respiratory viruses, I was unable to rationally judge the difference. It was all scary.”

Of course, being a mother doesn’t mean being worried all the time, what will happen next. She has cherished the opportunity to become a mother, not just once, but three times. “I keep thinking, ‘I brought someone into the world,'” she said. “Children are truly the greatest gift. I cannot communicate everything that is meant.”

What she is trying to communicate now is what can be done about RSV. It has worked with Sanofi to raise awareness of this viral threat. This has included speaking at conferences, doing interviews and hosting a brunch with mothers and paediatricians. “Some of the people are shocked that they didn’t know about RSV,” Johnson East said. “There’s a million different things going on for their kids, birthdays, assignments, ear infections, colds. Many mothers are overwhelmed with information and don’t know what to look for.” All of this is a challenging balancing act indeed. But if you talk to the right people — such as real medical professionals who have scientific evidence behind what they say instead of just a friend or social media friend — it can help you and your child breathe easier. .