Yes! Both the American Association of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend the vitamin K shot for every newborn.
Vitamin K is extremely important for blood clotting and we aren’t born with any, so it’s necessary to give babies an extra boost of Vitamin K to make sure they don’t bleed too much.
What is Vitamin K?
Vitamin K plays a huge role in blood clotting. Blood clotting helps us stop bleeding if we get a cut or bruise. But our bodies can’t make Vitamin K on our own, so we need a little help. We get our vitamin K from leafy greens like spinach, kale, and broccoli, and from good bacteria that live in our stomachs. A lack of Vitamin K can cause bleeding, even without a noticeable injury.
Why do we give Vitamin K to newborns?
Our bodies get Vitamin K through food and our gut bacteria. Newborns haven’t eaten or developed gut bacteria. Breast milk has small amounts of Vitamin K (and formula can have extra vitamin K added), but not enough to prevent potential bleeding in babies, even if the parent takes extra vitamin K during their pregnancy. We give Vitamin K to newborns to help them out until six months of age, when they develop their own gut bacteria and start to eat solid foods.
Bleeding can be caused by accidents like a baby bumping their arm against something hard, but it can also happen without a noticeable injury, especially if Vitamin K levels are low. This bleeding is called Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding (VKDB). That’s why the shot is so important: even though we can do everything we can to keep a baby from getting injured, bleeding without noticeable injury can occur if a baby is Vitamin K deficient.
What happened before the Vitamin K shot?
The really sad answer is that babies used to die from Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding. And this wasn’t hundreds of years ago; remember, physicians started recommending vitamin K shots in the 1960s, so it wasn’t that long ago (even if it might feel like it!). In 1930, a Danish biochemist was awarded the Nobel Prize for figuring out that Vitamin K deficiency caused spontaneous bleeding. Then in 1944, Swedish scientists published a huge study showing that vitamin K injections helped prevent VKDB in newborns. In 1961, the American Association of Pediatrics began recommending vitamin K shots. Since then, studies all over the world have shown that vitamin K helps prevent VKDB (A study from the UK can be found here and a study from Germany can be found here).
Is the Vitamin K shot a vaccine?
Nope! A vaccine prevents an infectious disease, but the Vitamin K shot is just that…a vitamin!
But there’s a Black Box Warning for Vitamin K shots!
Yes, there is. A Black Box Warning is the highest safety-related warning that medications can have. So why does the vitamin K shot have one if it’s so important for babies? Because you can have an allergic reaction, called anaphylaxis, to Vitamin K, most often if given in a large dose (via IV). Allergic reactions to Vitamin K are much rarer than potential bleeding events and there is treatment for anaphylaxis.
The bottom line?
The Vitamin K shot prevents Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding and excessive bleeding generally, which can lead to serious injury or death in newborns. The potential side effect of the shot is an allergic reaction, but that is extremely rare. Talk to your OB/GYN if you have more questions about the Vitamin K shot.
Love,
Those Nerdy Girls
Further Reading:
AAP – Vitamin K and the Newborn Infant
NIH – Characterizing the Severe Reactions of Parenteral Vitamin K1
