Newborn vit K injection or oral for 6 weeks?

[megan sacha]

These were the options given to us by our midwife. As much as I hate the idea of my newborn having any shots, I'm tempted to do that as I'm worried we wouldn't stay on top of the once a week for 6 weeks oral dosing. Seems like a lot to be thinking/worrying about/remembering to do postpartum. She said that there's no preservatives in the vax and didn't sound like any harmful extras.

[littlec]

I researched this so much before I decided to do the oral vitamin K. A lot of people don't do anything, on the logic that it can't be a "vitamin K deficiancy" if every child is born that way- that makes sense, but I couldn't do nothing. I went back and forth on the shot, and it wasn't until I learned that the shot gives something like 20,000 times more than what the baby needs that I decided against it...and if we would've had any sort of birth trauma, I probably would've gotten the shot.

I did the oral on day 1, day 7, and day 21 of his life. I also continue to take a drop a day myself. To remember, I just put a reminder in my cell phone calendar. I think I still have links to all the research in my emails, let me know if you want it. Good luck deciding!!

[treegardner]

We didn't do the shot or the Vit K.

[amnesiac]

Since this isn't about vaccines I'm moving over to H&H where I think you'll get more response.

[pumpkinhead]

We did the injection with both of ours. There is really only one study that shows a tenuous link to childhood cancer, it wasn't really conclusive and hasn't been reproducible to my knowledge. We waited until they'd nursed 3 or 4 times each and the shot was administered by the nurse while they were nursing.

[WifeofAnt]

I think I'd do the shot. Its kind of a toss up on the risks/benefits, depending on your views. Some people find the shot too risky because of the high dosage, others don't like to comprimise the 'virgin gut' if they don't have to.

[AKfamily]

I did a lot of research and ended up supplementing myself with vitamin K and allowed it to get to the baby via breastmilk.
There is an article at http://www.babyreference.com/VitaminKinjectORnot.htm all about vit K here's one excerpt (if the link doesn't still work I have the whole article on my computer, PM me if you want it):
A Better Solution
The breastfed infant can be supplemented with several low oral doses of liquid vitamin K9 (possibly 200 micrograms per week for 5 weeks, totaling 1 milligram, even more gradual introduction may be better). Alternatively, the nursing mother can take vitamin K supplements daily or twice weekly for 10 weeks. (Supplementation of the pregnant mother does not alter fetal levels but supplementation of the nursing mother does increase breastmilk and infant levels.)
Either of these provides a much safer rate of vitamin K supplementation. Maternal supplementation of 2.5 mg per day, recommended by one author, provides a higher level of vitamin K through breastmilk than does formula,10 and may be much more than necessary.

[Marnica]

I allowed the vit k shot for DS......I deeply regret this and wish I could take it back.

Any future LO's will get oral k.

All synthetic injected substances carry risks.....and the midwife that told you there is no preservative in there is wrong. There is benzyl alcohol in there as a preservative. Here is the MSDS for this chemical.
http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-Benzyl_alcohol-9927099

This substance may be toxic to the liver and CNS

it says on the package insert for the vitamin k injection that benzyl alcohol has been associated with toxicity in newborns.
http://web.archive.org/web/200702130...EPHYTON_PI.pdf

I have no doubt that the vitamin k shot is what is causing so many babies to be jaundiced. Please read the whole insert.

[seaheroine]

We did oral, a couple of drops, at birth only. Non-traumatic birth, no issues.

[grumpybear]

I researched this a bit for my DS and came up with the ff:

The injection carries a link between the shot and childhood cancer however it is more effective than the oral in preventing brain hemorrhage

[WTHamI?]

If those are your two options, I'd do oral. But I'm of the mind that if all babies are born without it there must be a reason, even if we don't really understand it. I plan to make sure and eat lots of vitamin K foods myself so baby gets a decent amount through breast milk but I'm uncomfortable supplementing directly for something I don't see as a deficiency. If I changed my mind I'd definitely do oral though, I really don't see any justification to inject an infant at birth with such a crazy high amount, not to mention the preservatives.

[nia82]

We did the oral stuff, no issues. I wouldn't do the shot.

[pumpkinhead]

Originally Posted by grumpybear

I researched this a bit for my DS and came up with the ff:

The injection carries a link between the shot and childhood cancer however it is more effective than the oral in preventing brain hemorrhage

Yeah, this study was discredited in 2000 due to poor methods and small sample size.

[smeep]

The other option here (as PP's have mentioned) is to do neither. That's the option I chose (however, if I had a traumatic birth such as a cesarean or otherwise and was unable to nurse during the few days and give my baby the vitamin K-rich colostrum and decided to opt for the vitamin K, I would choose oral).

In searching for Sara Wickham's article (the main scale tipper for me) I did find this, which points out a couple of other things that are worth thinking about:
http://www.givingbirthnaturally.com/...vitamin-k.html

Here is Sara Wickham's article:
http://www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol13No2/vitk.htm

There is plenty of other information out there. Just make sure you do your research (risks vs. risks, never risks vs. benefits because then your mind is automatically skewed towards whatever you are labeling as beneficial) and know that you CAN decline or delay it. Another note to think about with the oral (which is yet another reason why I declined it altogether) is that ANYTHING besides breastmilk that a baby gets orally will negatively affect their gut. How badly depends on what it is and how much and how often it's given, but it's still not an additional risk I would like to take when the risks of not giving it are so incredibly small.

[mwherbs]

Sara Wickham's article missed the info from the UK that is published every year and although there are 2 points of the data that are always visited - cases of confirmed HDN/LHDN and cases that are not - there is a much larger set that remain uninvestigated but reported as HDN/LHDN because they are uninvestigated the are just left out of the stats- but it would put the incidence of vitamin K associated bleeds at a higher rate that is reported- of course there are alot of politics involved for first world countries to actually admit to having flaws in the care they provide-
from 2006-2008 there were 46 reported cases with only 10 confirmed the rest still had outstanding data 11 are from copies of the same case and there are 18% of the units not reporting- the majority of the cases are from babies who do not receive any vitamin K (oral or shot) - there are babies who do receive oral vitamin K and do develop HDN/LHDN and they do have metabolic disorders or another disease state like clinical and subclinical gallbladder or liver disease.
you can download the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit reports and see
the most recent one is on that page and the others are listed under publications--http://bpsu.inopsu.com/
something I find interesting is that they are listing diagnostic criteria their own which is infants under 6 months with 2x the prothombin time and bruising or bleeding or intercrainal hemorrhage but also evaluating their info according to international standard criteria for late bleeds in infants older than 7 days and who have-
4x the prothombin time and one of these
- normal or raised platelet count and normal fibrinogen -
-or they get normal prothombin time after administering vitamin K-- --PIVKA_II levels above normal-- but these take weeks to process and could be used later for information but not for clinical treatment
-----this is how stats can get twisted around a bit --
so if a kid has a bit better prothombin time but is treated with vitamin K and improves they do not dx it as LHDN - so these kids would have low vitamin K but not diagnosed LHDN and those stats do not get compiled -- this is important to me because I have talked with midwives and parents who have treated their babies because of symptoms- bruising/bleeding and most have not had a dx- and I am thinking that none of us want to fulfill the dx criteria if we can avoid it but I also think that somehow that info should be represented so we have a better idea of how many babies have low but do not meet diagnostic standards
in England in the 80's and there was a big push to not supplemental feed any babies intended to be breastfed the rate of low vitamin K bleeds shot up to a rate of 1/1200 babies who were breastfed and did not receive supplemental vitamin K- Mcninch was the author of an article about the cases and then authored several others after trying to figure out what went on- some of his areas of investigation led him to even consider toxin exposure (which does have an effect- furans) and the exclusive breastfeeding that had come into vogue as opposed to the supplemental formula feeds that were common in the early postpartum-even if a mom was intending to breastfeed -- which lead them to recommend vitamin K injections and then later to adding oral vitamin K as a recommendation when the injection under question - the 1/1200 is close to the New York State reports of HDN/LHDN of 1 to 2/1000-- and matches other places in the world where babies don't get vitamin K and are breastfed-- and I would add the studies of those places also has brought out maternal intakes of vitamin K that are 50 micrograms a day or less as a risk factor for her infant.
The thing is the studies on vitamin K intake of women of childbearing age in the US the average intake is 50 micrograms or less a day-- so that puts the majority of our population in the at risk status-- here is a nice web site where you can evaluate your diet and see what your daily intake is-
http://nutritiondata.self.com/
90 micrograms a day is the current recommended amount but there are some ongoing studies and some suggestions to up that to 200-300 micrograms/day related to how vitamin K supports bone and circulatory health- beyond clotting factors .
----------------
as for what to do the shot would cover all the bases and you would not have to do much beyond that, the thing is that babies who have been resuscited or are bruised or have jaundice are likely to use up their vitamin K and may be a reason to accept a shot instead of going the oral route-( or if you have a metabolic disorder of your own or take certain meds) , oral dosing for the extended period of time is what the Netherlands recommends and is what I would recommend if you go the oral route less likely to have the problems with sub-clinical gallbladder disease and some of the other things reported in other countries that give oral supplements for shorter time periods- and I would say take a look at the studies around women's health in general and vitamin K- issues like prevention of fractures, less hardening of the arteries and better blood sugar regulation in people who eat more green veggies than those who do not- it is probably a life time

[lookatreestar]

my ds did get it but he had a very fast/hard birth that let him to have a lot of facial bruising. he was never jaundice though... with my dd she didn't have any sort of bruising (but a long slow labor, in the birth canal for 2 hours) so no shot for her.

looking back i might have just really upped my vit k and hoped he got it through breastmilk. but since i had already had a toddler who could have easily injured a newborn i wasn't taking any chances. his little body was already trying to hard to heal his facial bruising.

[VeggieLovinMama]

Originally Posted by WTHamI?

If those are your two options, I'd do oral. But I'm of the mind that if all babies are born without it there must be a reason, even if we don't really understand it. I plan to make sure and eat lots of vitamin K foods myself so baby gets a decent amount through breast milk but I'm uncomfortable supplementing directly for something I don't see as a deficiency. If I changed my mind I'd definitely do oral though, I really don't see any justification to inject an infant at birth with such a crazy high amount, not to mention the preservatives.

I totally agree with this poster. I'm not getting the Vit. K shot for this baby because I think that billions of years of evolution/God/Nature/what have you would not have designed babies this way if not for a reason. As for the spouting off of all kinds of "scientific studies" I would remain skeptical of these because there is such a finite limit to what science can tell us. Science is not a god, and it shouldn't be treated like one. Science is very limited in its knowledge. Think just a while ago that doctors believed infants couldn't get enough iron by breastfeeding. Well it's not about amount, it's about bioavailabilty, etc. I would say the same about Vit. K. Colostrum has Vit. K for your baby. If you are worried, I'd say supplement with Nettle infusions and Alfalfa infusions which supply lots of Vit. K. Also, dandelion greens, kale, etc. will provide Vit. K. This is what I am doing.
Hope this helps!

[CherryBomb]

We chose to do the shot with all of ours, and will continue. The evidence against the shot seems tenuous, at best, to me, so I just didn't feel there was any overwhelming reason to avoid the shot. We also have one child who's significantly brain damaged, so anything i can do to avoid another baby suffering that, I'll do.

[owlgirl]

I agree with Veggielovinmama on this one!! I am an RN and administer the shot. It can be done while bfing and babes usually don't even cry. I found with the oral the poor babes often spit up later or choked it down, must taste nasty!! I really personally don't want my baby injected with anything made by a pharmaceutical co. but that's me. I mean I'd have to have a pretty traumatic birth to even consider it. Research does show if you eat your kale baby should be fine!

[GoBecGo]

DD1 had the injection as my pushing phase was only 5 minutes and she was shocky when she was born.

DD2 i only had a 6min pushing phase, BUT obviously there was more room since i'd had a baby already and she wasn't shocky at ALL, so we skipped it.

Then with DD2, on day 5 her cord stump dropped off, but the navel hadn't closed up underneath - i could see a whitish-green membrane inside. On day 6 or so the navel began to bleed. It was only a drop at a time, and didn't seem to bother her, but i did NOT like seeing my newborn's blood. Because of the shape of her umbilicus (which still protruded substantially) and belly (the skin of which sort of rolled up against the umbilicus whenever she lifted her legs up, which was ALOT at that stage of newness) she kept on knocking it and making it bleed more. I tried about 3 or 4 different things to stop it getting knocked - a dressing, a high nappy/low nappy/no nappy, a bandage round her waist - none of them worked, every few hours she knocked it and it bled. So on day 10 we asked my MW to come administer the Vit K injection to help her clot - NOT because we thought she had a bleeding disorder, simply because it had been 4 days and her navel wasn't healing better or bleeding less. It never bled again, and was healed well by day 13. I don't regret my decision, and when we have #3 i will do the same thing - base my decision on the baby in front of me and the situation at the time.