“If I could turn the clock back, I’d definitely take 10 of those vaccinations.”

A woman is warning other parents after her rejection of a vaccine led to her infant daughter contracting whooping cough.

Gold Coast Health / Via Facebook: GCHealth

Cormit Avital, a first-time mother in Australia, discussed her baby daughter Eva's ordeal in a video for Gold Coast Health, her local health authority.

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Avital said she had been offered the vaccine for pertussis, or whooping cough, in her 28th week of pregnancy, but turned it down.

"Being the healthy, fit, organic woman I said, 'Leave me alone, I don't need this crap,'" Avital said she thought at the time.

Facebook: video.php

At first, Avital said the illness seemed like a simple cold. However, it soon became terrifying.

Eva's cough became something out of a "horror movie," and her baby turned blue and floppy, Avital said.

"For a moment there, you think they're dead in your hands," she said. "[It's] a lot of suffering for a tiny little cute thing you love so much."

Eva has since spent a month in intensive care, but is improving, Gold Coast Health Staff Specialist Dr. Paul Van Buynder told the BBC.

Instagram: @goldcoast

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