This video of a baby breathing is going viral for a very good reason

Experts who’ve viewed the video for Motherly agree.

“The breathing pattern shown in the video is known as retractions. This occurs when a baby has to use muscles between the ribs or in the neck to breathe and is a sign that a baby is having to work harder than normal to breathe,” Dr. Kristin Dean, Associate Medical Director at Doctor On Demand tells Motherly.

O’Brien didn’t know exactly what was going on with her daughter when she shot the video, but she knew something wasn’t right. Two days earlier O’Brien had noticed Luna wasn’t feeling well during a newborn photo shoot and had taken her to the hospital.

She was “concerned about Bronchiolitis as our son had previously had it,” she says, adding that the medical staff “kept us in for a few hours but then discharged Luna without treatment as she was much better.”

Two days later, the day the video was taken, O’Brien noticed that Luna had been uncharacteristically quiet all day. When she unbuttoned her outfit she saw the sucking in at the ribs, and knew it wasn’t right. “I was watching her sleep next to me and realized it didn’t look right. I unbuttoned her [outfit] and this is what i saw,” she wrote in the caption for the video.

In her statement to Motherly, O’Brien explains why she took the video in the first place. “I called 111 [a telephone service provided by Britain’s National Health Service to help people with medical issues] and awaited a call back and during that time I took the short video clip, to show the doctors in the hospital if necessary. In hindsight we perhaps should have called 999 [similar to 911 in the United States] or gone straight to A&E [the accident and emergency department, or ER] without waiting for a call back,” she explains.

Because of her mother’s call Luna was given priority admission to the pediatric department, where she spent the night on oxygen. She made a full recovery and is now a healthy 1-year-old.

Courtesy Charlie O’Brien

Experts say O’Brien was right to keep a cool head when she noticed her baby’s strange breathing. “Although retractions should be taken seriously, it is best for parents not to panic if this is noticed. Instead, parents should take their child to see a doctor immediately. Retractions can occur between the ribs, below the sternum or in the area surrounding the collar bone and appear as a sucking in of the skin as seen in this video,” says Dr. Dean.

Diana Spalding is a pediatric nurse and Motherly’s Digital Education Editor. She agrees that parents should not panic, and suggests that “for serious respiratory concerns, like severe retractions or wheezing, gasping, or color changes, call 911.”

Spalding notes that O’Brien didn’t just keep calm and listen to the medical professionals she called, she also listened to herself, which is so important. “The mom trusted her gut,” says Spalding. “Parents have a deep and trustworthy sense about when things are off with their children, and I always encourage them to act on that intuition.”

Since posting the video, which has now been viewed more than 2.6 million times, O’Brien has heard from parents who have noticed similar symptoms in their own children, and trusted their gut as she did, seeking medical help quickly because they remembered O’Brien’s video.

“I’m so pleased I shared the clip – if it means just one baby or family is helped,” she says.