A coldsore kiss almost killed Claire's baby.

So many new parents wouldn’t know about this frightening health risk – which is why Claire is sharing her story.

When Brooke was born, visitors flocked to the hospital to cuddle and kiss the baby girl.

Sounds like a stock-standard welcome celebration for any newborn, doesn’t it?

Except that one of those seemingly innocent kisses left tiny Brooke fighting for her life — and now her mother wants to warn other new parents of the health scare her family faced.

Little Brooke fell seriously ill, you see, after a visitor with a cold sore kissed her on the lips.

What that visitor didn’t realise is that cold sores can be truly dangerous for babies — because when a baby catches the herpes simplex virus, liver and brain damage and even death can result.

According to UK newspaper The Sun, Anyone with an active strain of the herpes virus – whether cold sores, genital sores, shingles or chicken pox – should handle newborns with extreme care because the virus can get into the bloodstream it can go to the brain and cause fatal meningitis.

“Please share this with every new mum and pregnant woman you know… COLD SORES CAN BE FATAL FOR A BABY,” Brooke’s mum Claire Henderson wrote on her Facebook page, sharing images of little Brooke with red, irritated blotches on her face.

“Before three months old a baby cannot fight the herpes virus,” explained Ms Henderson, from Doncaster in the UK.

Fortunately, she noticed the signs early and rushed her baby to the emergency room, where doctors put her on a drip for five days.

Brooke was “very lucky,” Ms Henderson said: “All her tests came back clear”.

But the gravity of her baby’s health situation didn’t escape the new mum, who pleaded with other parents to take the risk seriously.

“The moral of the story is DO NOT let anyone kiss your newborns mouth, even if they don’t look like they have a cold sore, she wrote.

“[I]f someone had a cold sore ask them to stay away until it has gone,” she added.

“Everyone who I have spoken to had not heard of this before and so I felt it was important to share Brooke’s story and raise awareness to stop anyone else going through what we have this week.”

Ms Henderson’s post has already been shared more than 34,000 times and written up by media outlets across the globe.

Here in Australia, the Lampton-Pugh family was not so lucky when their daughter was diagnosed with the herpes simplex virus late last year.

Their baby girl, Eloise Lampton, passed away on November 2014 at Mackay Hospital in Queensland after developing a staph infection.

She was only 24 days old.

“They (doctors) thought it could have come from me, but I didn’t test positive to the disease. It was passed on through a cold sore,” Eloise’s mother Sarah Pugh told Daily Mail Australia.

“You have to be in contact — kissed or touched. We didn’t have any visitors at hospital. It could have been from anyone.”

That tragedy prompted Ms Pugh to share a Facebook warning about the risks of the virus. She wrote in a Facebook post last year:

[T]hink twice before cuddling a newborn if they have a cold sore on their lip. Please pass this vital information onto your family and friends.

We all have had that one friend that likes to be a little over-protective of their baby and not want to be swamped with a room full of visitors. Instead of thinking they are over-reacting, respect their wishes and know they are just trying to protect their little treasure.

Cold sores – the herpes simplex virus – are deadly!

No baby’s life should ever be cut short.

May you fly high little Eloise! xxx

Please share this warning with any new parents you know. It could just save a baby’s life.