My third child was born in March this year. After a wonderful uncomplicated start in life, he contracted whooping cough at eight weeks. It was the worst nightmare of my life. I went to the surgery three times in a week telling each different doctor I saw that my baby had whooping cough. They preferred to diagnose a virus and kept sending me home. On the fourth visit, I finally saw my own doctor. She knows I am very alternative and don't seek medical help often. She witnessed him having a coughing fit and turning blue. She was on the phone to the hospital before the fit was over.

For five hours I sat in a dirty, cold ward room waiting for our baby to be examined. When the doctor finally came, I was in tears and decided to go home. She said I couldn't do that as she wanted to put a drip in him and give him antibiotics. When I refused, hospital staff suddenly turned up in larger numbers waving medical advice waivers in my face. I went home in tears with the doctor's voice ringing in my ears that my son could suffer a cerebral hemorrhage from coughing and that I shouldn't be taking him home.

It was hard for me to carry on completely alone. But I just knew that this tiny baby surely would have a better chance of surviving always being in his mother's arms and constantly breastfeeding, than being put in a dirty hospital cot, hooked up to all number of things, unable to be near me. For the next two weeks, I did nothing but sit in a kitchen full of steam. I was always feeding him. A dear friend would creep in the backdoor and most lovingly administer acupuncture to him. My homeopath sent drosera. I think I must have cried every day from exhaustion, fear and loneliness.

Well, I don't need to tell you my son made a full recovery. He was slow to put back the weight he lost but he is now a roly-poly full-of-beans seven-month-old.

It was WDDTY which put me on the path of being informed. I will be forever indebted. JBP, Cookham Dean, Berks......