Mom Shares a Sobering Video Explaining Why She'll Never Have a Photo of Her Children Together

Even though Melissa Mead is pregnant with her second child, the joyous news hasn't overshadowed her stark reality: both of her children will never have the chance to meet.

Melissa's first born, William, died at just 12 months old in 2014 after hospital staff allegedly failed to recognize signs of sepsis. A streptococcus A infection caused an abscess to form in the toddler's small lung, but doctors didn't catch the common blood infection that developed until after it was too late.

After her son's preventable death, Melissa tragically learned just how common sepsis is. She made a promise in her child's honor to raise awareness so that no other family has to endure an avoidable loss. Now that she is pregnant with her second baby, this mom from the United Kingdom has shared a sobering video on her Facebook page, A Mother Without a Child, explaining her story and why she will never have a photo of her kids together.

"I thought that it must be rare, but I quickly learned it is not rare. Every 3.5 seconds someone in the world dies from sepsis," Melissa wrote on signs held throughout the video. "It happens regularly and does not discriminate, it spares no ethnic group, no social class, no age or geographic region."

Although, as she pointed out, sepsis is the most common cause of death of pregnant women in the United Kingdom, she wants other parents to realize that if caught early, antibiotics and fluids are all that's required to save a life.

"It is the most common pathway to death due to an infection, and kills more people than breast, bowel, and prostate cancer combined," Melissa wrote. "Did you know that sepsis can be caused by chest infections, urinary tract infections, burns, stings or bites, to name a few? No, me either."