January 15, 2026- Colorado, Montana and Utah are ranked in the nation’s top six states for protecting children against RSV – an achievement that follows Intermountain Health’s intensive efforts to educate expectant mothers and parents of newborns about how RSV protection can prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and even death in a baby’s first year of life.
When protected mothers who pass antibodies to their newborns are included in those numbers, Utah is ranked No. 1 in the country for protecting children against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), according to a Centers for Disease Control summary of the 2024-25 RSV season.
Additionally, Utah babies with RSV protection, either from antibodies passed from their moms at birth or from an RSV immunization, were nine times less likely to be hospitalized, and five times less likely to need intensive care to help them breathe if they were hospitalized, than babies without RSV protection, Intermountain Children’s Health experts have found.
RSV is a highly contagious virus that causes bronchiolitis, a lung infection that can result in severe illness in infants. Every year in the United States, RSV is linked to thousands of hospitalizations, hundreds of deaths, and millions of clinic visits in children under the age of 5.