I turned down the vitamin K shot this time, and they didn't give me too much flak about it at the hospital. The pediatrician tried to pressure me into it, but I just said no. She even told me that since my baby was a *tiny* bit anemic, that the shot could help---what a bunch of nonsense!! I think it just made her uncomfortable that someone was saying NO to a Mainstream thing. I asked her what the shot protects against, and she said "inability to clot blood." But from what I understand, it is an extremely RARE condition. My response was, "Well, the rest of the time, babies are fine, right? I mean, except for the extremely rare case? Doesn't nature design babies this way for a reason?" Her answer: "Nature does some things well and some things not so well." HA! I believe nature designed newborns perfectly (OK, leaving aside horrible things like terminal baby illnesses and terrible birth outcomes...), but it's grownups who lack the faith and trust.
And the pediatrician offered this little gem as proof that they need the vitamin K shot: "You know, babies' blood does not clot as fast during those first 5-7 days, and in fact, that's why babies used to not be circumcised until the eighth day after birth. Too many babies bled to death before that, after circumcision."
I was thinking, lady, if you don't get out of my room I'm gonna throw something at you!!! Check out her logic: babies are imperfect because they bleed to death after we cut off body parts! So we have to fix them by the vitamin K shot! NOT get rid of circumcision or other risky procedures, just add MORE interventions to make their bodies capable of dealing with the strain on them. Ugh.
This is NOT meant to be a debate on circumcision (there's a separate forum for that I think), but just to illustrate my interesting encounter with another Mainstream doctor. Ugh. Needless to say, I had not chosen this ped. She was on the staff. I appreciated her attention to detail, and she always checked my baby very carefully and respectfully every day, and was gentle. But the underlying idea that Nature makes mistakes left and right, I cannot stand. Anyway, my vote was NO for vitamin K, eyedrops, and everything else invasive. I let them do the newborn heel prick for blood tests, but that's all.
