For about a week, Charlotte Raveney and Mohamed Eisawy’s daughter Mira was a happy, bubbly baby. Her delivery was exhausting, though, and Raveney developed a slight fever and a cold sore on her bottom lip three days later — the first one she had ever had.
But the sore was gone the next day, and Raveney did not think about it again. She did not connect her cold sore to her daughter’s death a week later.
Mira died after contracting herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), the same virus that can cause cold sores. Initially, Mira was fussy, would not breast feed for more than a few minutes, and had a pink and sticky left eye.