X-post: Would you decline Vit K in this situation?

[Celina2]

X-posted from Birth and Beyond

Would you decline Vit K in this situation?

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Hi! I am currently pregnant for the 14th time. I have 4 living children at home and have had mostly early miscarriages but 2 second trimester losses. There was never really a solid reason discovered for it and to be honest I wasn't really sure if I was ready to be pregnant again.

However, my husband got home from Iraq during my fertile phase and well, here we are 28weeks along with a blessed baby girl.

At the beginning of my pregnancy I was advised to take baby aspirin every day to potentially avoid a blood clot that might have caused my losses. My levels (I had so many taken that I forget right now which one but I know I have it written down somewhere) were off but not quite off enough to warrant being on heparin injections.

I would normally want to decline the vitamin K injection (and I declined it last time but they gave it to my daughter anyway because I had to be knocked out in the middle of my c/s and didn't come to for about 2.5 hours).

Will the baby aspirin put my daughter at increased risk for hemorragic (sp?) diseases of the newborn? I am going to stop taking it when I am between 30 and 32 weeks. Surprisingly when I asked my OB if the hospital stocked oral vitamin K she said that I could just sign a waiver declining the injection. (She is also really supportive of my decision to VBAC.)

I haven't found any good information on whether the long term use of aspirin would affect the baby's clotting factors.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Celina

[CortLong]

I would still decline the Vitamin K in your situation.

[queenbean]

I researched this heavily a few weeks ago, and saw nothing to indicate that aspirin use would increase the baby's risk of hemorrhage. Anticoagulants, yes, and antibiotics, but not aspirin. I would eat plenty of foods rich in vitamin K in the weeks prior to delivery, and then if the delivery goes well (no forceps or vacuum, no excess trauma to the babe), I'd probably decline.

[Celina2]

Thank you so much for your responses. I am a bit afraid of researching it a ton by myself because it is so emotional for me to be pregnant and being constantly afraid that my baby might die again. That coupled with some of the horrible info put out there abiout VBAC and you have one mama having a hard time enjoying being pregnant but relaxation has helped so much.

Celina

[cfiddlinmama]

Also, remember that the studies done on the vit. k shot were babies who didn't receive colostrum. Colostrum is very high in vit. k. Nature is very smart! I would probably do oral vit. k just in case, but not the shot. Hope that helps!

[Celina2]

Thanks. Do you have to have a prescription to get oral vit K for babe? I am pretty sure our hospital doesn't have it on their formulary.

Celina

[EviesMom]

If you want to do the oral vitamin K, I bought oral vitamin K from the website Birth With Love, where my midwife has a kit of the other home birthing supplies I needed. It was pretty inexpensive, so I'd just buy it from there or a similar place and not worry about trying to find it in a pharmacy.

[onlyboys]

In the absence of an instrumental delivery, or some other sign of trauma at birth, I would decline.

[MamaEssie]

I was on aspirin throughout my pg w/ ds and declined the Vit K with my midwife's approval and w/o any complications.

[Girlprof]

So what if you are on anti-coagulants? I'm taking 40mg of Lovenox along with a baby aspirin every day. It's only recently occured to me that all this might affect vitamin K one way or another.

Sarah