Vitamin K shot

[sophi4ka]

What do you think about skipping the vitamin K shot for the baby?
How dangerous it is for the baby to not get the shot?

My situation:
I had my baby 11 days ago and didn't do the vit K shot for her. Instead my midwife suggested me taking Alfalfa pills during the pregnancy and postpartum, which I did. I've been taking the pills so far, but feel that they are the cause for my enormous milk supply, plugged ducts and engorgement. So I want to stop the pills, but don't know if it will deprive the baby of the vitamin K source.

What do you think?

Thanks
Sophie

[mwherbs]

how much vitamin K are you eating a day?
here is a way to evaluate your diet-- lower incidence of vitamin K related bleeds early or late(up to 3 months) if mom gets above the RDA of vitamin K a day- somewhere around 230 micrograms/day looks good but there is not absolute studies on diet alone - maternal supplementation seems to increase vitamin K levels in breastmilk exponentially - you could consider getting the oral drops for yourself and taking them to increase K in your breastmilk if you are having trouble eating at minimum the recommended daily amount- and if you or the baby end up on antibiotics or get sick or if the baby has any bleeding or bruising or prolonged jaundice, decreased nursing/bms get the shot-

http://www.nutritiondata.com/

[dziwozony]

I actually believe that if babies were meant to have a certain level of Vit K at birth, then they would have it. I did not do Vit K shots with either of my boys...no health problems! No regrets at all.

Curiously, I had been craving foods that were sources of Vit K both before & after the birth. Though I have heard mixed info about whether or not a significant amount of that actually passes over to the baby.

[sunfish21]

Just had my second and skipped it with both kids. I agree with PP about baby being born with what they need. I eat reasonably well and take high quality supplements and I like to think this is all my baby needs (through breast milk).

[phathui5]

We chose not to have the shot with babies #2, 3 and 4. There were no adverse effects for us of skipping it.

[ann_of_loxley]

I wouldnt bother. Your baby is fine without it.
My baby was even born via emergency section and since they didn't use any 'tools' to get him out (just their hands) - they felt it as pefectly fine for him to not have any vit K at all.

[sophi4ka]

So you don't take any Vit K pills after you had your babies?

[dziwozony]

nope, nor did my midwives suggest it (had 2 different ones).

[Beltane]

We are not planning on doing the shot.

[Lovinmum]

We skipped it but I made sure to take extra just to be safe. HTH!

[micah_mae_]

We planned on skipping it, but our son was 10.5 lbs..pushed for 2 hours..compound presentation..etc. Basically his entire head was bruised and purple. The excessive bruising worried us so we decided to go ahead and do it. We soaked gauze in arnica and put it under his hat as well.

[Beltane]

Originally Posted by micah_mae_

We planned on skipping it, but our son was 10.5 lbs..pushed for 2 hours..compound presentation..etc. Basically his entire head was bruised and purple. The excessive bruising worried us so we decided to go ahead and do it. We soaked gauze in arnica and put it under his hat as well.

If this happened to us we would give the shot as well.

[Annoia]

Originally Posted by micah_mae_

We planned on skipping it, but our son was 10.5 lbs..pushed for 2 hours..compound presentation..etc. Basically his entire head was bruised and purple. The excessive bruising worried us so we decided to go ahead and do it. We soaked gauze in arnica and put it under his hat as well.

We would do the same.

We skipped Vit K with #2, planning on doing the same with #3 providing we don't run into the above scenario. I didn't specifically supplement, but I was taking chlorophyll before birth due to low hemoglobin levels, and continued to take it once my levels were up. I believe chlorophyll works as a Vit K supplement.

We didn't run into any health complications - quite the contrary, #2 was a very healthy (jaundice free *wink wink*) baby. The lack of Vit K did worry our ped, who had to call a specialist to see if the baby needed the shot. The specialist said "well, it's too late now" (this was at 3 weeks ppd).

[MamaJenese]

Similar story as some other posters, DS was 10.5 pounds, two black eyes swollen nose looked he lost a fight with a prize fighter. I opted to give him the Vit. K but we did two oral doses. DD was a footling breech resulting in c-section skipped the Vit K.

[JennTheMomma]

We didn't do Vit K for our son.

[sattygirl99]

We had planned to skip it with DD but her delivery was (unnecessarily) traumatic and I was c-sectioned well after she was engaged in the birth canal (I could feel her head). Given that they had to pull her BACK up through the birth canal, we opted to do it. Had she had a typical, non interventive vaginal delivery, we wouldn't have done it.

[iowaorganic]

in most cases they don't need vit K and it is really just for clotting and if you aren't cutting parts off- well no need to clot ykwim? Babies have thier highest natural vit k levels at something like 8 days old. So I would say lay off the alfalfa.

DS2 was our first 'natural' babe and I did take him in for a bili stick when he was about 5 days old. the nurse did comment on how much he bled though. He actually needed a bandaid.

[sattygirl99]

Wean down off of the alfala... Because it is used to increase breast milk, if you just drastically stop, your supply could drastically dip too

[phathui5]

Originally Posted by sophi4ka

So you don't take any Vit K pills after you had your babies?

I didn't.

[Artichokie]

we didn't do the shot and i didn't alter my diet at all.