Will you be giving your newborn the vitamin K injection?

[Emmiedarling]

Just the above question really. I want to make an informed decision!

Mine did.

But I knew that my sister has some mild blood clotting issues. She has to have a Vit K injection every 6mths to help her.

DS1 had the drops. His Dad had bruising issues in the early days after birth, so it seemed prudent to give the drops, but I don't care what anyone says, no one's sticking a needle in my newborn. With DS2, we won't give any (different father no family history or bleeding or bruising).. I don't believe it's necessary.

You might find this link interesting (you'll have to copy and paste, I'm on my phone)

www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol13No2/vitk.htm

Give it

My hospital only used drops. The problem with those is you have to use them for about 3 months.
No way I'd refuse. Eliminating the risk of cerebral bleeds due to vit k deficiency just for a few vit drops is a no brainer, IMO. But then I still give my 2 year old vit drops to prevent the risk of ricketts, as 20% of kids have dangerously low vit d in this country. Again no brainer for me.

Both dcs had the injection. It didn't bother them at all. To my mind (and I'm not saying this is correct!) it was no different from a vaccination so I wasn't bothered about them having an injection. Neither batted an eyelid and it was all over in 2 seconds.

The oral version wasn't around when DD was born. Also it wasn't given straight away, but when she was about 10 days old. She had it done while I was feeding her and it wasn't traumatic at all.

Given the number of times DD has bashed her head recently I am glad she had it done.

Mother nature decided my baby would be born with Group B Strep and he had to undergo far more painful procedures than a simple injection. The idea that mother nature always gets it right is silly.

That must have been hard noble - I hope he made a full recovery?

The problem is that whilst there are risk factors for babies - such as an instrumental birth (not necessarily even a 'traumatic' one) there is no way to absolutely identify a baby who has a Vitamin K deficiency until they start bleeding. By which time it's too late and the chances of the baby suffering severe harm are overwhelming. I don't understand why the intervention is seen as anything other than beneficial.

I'm sorry but I just don't get the 'mother nature' argument...sometimes 'mother nature' gets it wrong - I have a small pelvis, which you could argue is down to nature, so should I have refused the emcs that saved my dd's life? Or the one I'll be having in a few weeks to make sure this baby is delivered safely? Of course not!

The injection is tiny, it's 0.2mls, which is far less than most vaccinations, and the risks of not having it far outweigh any argument for not having it. The policy when I had dd was to give it orally, I actually requested she had the injection because of the risk of her vomiting the dose back up (they refused).

Mother nature gets things wrong all the time, would you refuse ALL medical treatment based on that argument?

Please google haemolytic disease of the newborn and see just why vitamin K is so important.

He was fine, thanks, northernlurker, thanks to science and evidence-based medicine. :)

DD had injection, didnt even notice it, unlike the heel prick test a dew days later! I don't get the mother nature knows best argument either. Sometimes it's good to give mother nature a helping hand.

No, mother nature doesn't know best. Science knows better.

That's why infant mortality has decreased in accordance with scientific and medical advances.

Any obviously why developing world countries that can only rely on 'mother nature' getting it right have soaring mortality rates in comparison.

(Bangs head against desk).

If mother nature knows best then we shouldn't use any medical interventions to help ourselves or our children

If mother and baby dies because baby gets stuck, that's nature's way

If your child bleeds to death without a transfer, that's natures way

If your baby dies because vitK issues, that's natures way

If your child dies from measles, thats natures way.

The strongest survive.

All medical science does is allow the human race to become weaker by breeding from weak specimens that should really have died before puberty.

Whilst I don't have any issues with these arguments per se (see my post upthread) I do think they are deviations from the vit K issue & somewhat extreme examples. Personally I think a comparison to taking folic acid or vit D during pg are more akin - both require 'unnatural' doses of perfectly normal vitamins to be ingested to ensure baby doesn't have a life-threatening condition. It wasn't that long ago that excess vit D in pg was thought to be harmful (less than 10yrs), yet it is seen as necessary now.

Until there is a wealth of information to suggest that vit k does more harm than good, or there is a good way to identify those babies that need it, I know what I'd prefer to do.

No, mother nature doesn't know best. Science knows better.

Well, not necessarily. There are examples where science gets it wrong - thalidomide for one. Science didn't know better there.

SoupDragon that is an example where 'scientists' and a medical company carried out poor practice and failed to use appropriate protocols, in an effort to justify the money spent on producing the drug. In that case, greed was the issue. So I would say human beings don't always know better.

Good grief, thalidomide was a long time ago (in medical terms) and an awful lot of things have changed in clinical trials and medicine during pregnancy and childbirth since that (and partly because of that).

I think the main concern for some parents not wanting vitamin k administered by injection is the shock to the newborn.

Up until the birth, they have never felt hungry or cold. The feel of cold medical instruments, cotton fabric and even human hands are something they have never experienced. The bright lights and the foreign sounds must be very overwhelming for a tiny newborn.

I think it is important to administer the vitamin k but I will be choosing it orally for my babies.

In terms of shockingness to a newborn, I think a little prick is probably way down the list. Do they avoid the heel prick test too?

Noble every parent has different views. None are wrong. I choose not to have it administered by injection to my babies when they are born.

Some places only offer the injection.

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet (and is my reason for not giving any Vit k, not even oral drops) is the virgin gut.

My sister has Crohns and my husband has Colitis. There are other gut issues in both sides of the family. Because of this, I want to preserve my baby's virgin gut by aiming as far as is possible, for him to have only breast milk for the first 6 months of his life. That means avoiding oral Vit k (unless he had a traumatic/instrumental delivery in which case I'd give the drops), as well as Calpol etc.

It's an AIM however. Something I think is beneficial in a family where chronic gut disease is an issue, but of course if there are any strong medical indications that additional medicines need to be given orally, then of course we will review the situation.

Does a vit k injection affect the gut? What about vaccinations?

Does it actually mater how it is administered? Belitting those who choose to opt for oral rather than an injection is rather childish and pointless.

There are many cases of science not getting it right - there are now bacteria immune to the antibiotics that science provided.

Science is not always better.

I didn't belittle people who choose oral drops over an injection.

This thread is about not giving vitamin k at birth at all, not the method of delivery.