Giving birth is a confusing time, even in the most ideal of circumstances. During the early hours following birth, doctors will be doing a number of additional measures to keep everyone healthy, one of which includes administering a vitamin K shot to the newborn. Although the vitamin K shot has been routinely administered since 1961, it is one of those measures that isn’t talked about very often, in spite of the fact that it plays an important role in protecting a newborn against the risk of serious complications, such as excessive bleeding.
Vitamin K is important for blood clotting
Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that is stored in our liver, and is important for blood clotting and maintaining healthy bones. Older children and adults get vitamin K through dietary sources, such as eating leafy greens, eggs, and meat. Vitamin K is also produced by certain bacteria living in our gut.
Newborns only receive a very limited amount of vitamin K in the womb. And after birth, breastmilk only contains a very limited amount of vitamin K, and it takes a while for vitamin-K-producing bacteria to fully colonize the gut. “It takes a while to build up their own stores of vitamin K,” said Christina Fok, a pediatrician at UTHealth Houston.
Newborns have a shortage of vitamin K
As a result, babies are at a higher risk for bleeding problems in the first few months of life, due to a shortage of vitamin K. “Little cuts and nicks will not necessarily give them bleeding issues,” Fok said. However, the big concern is that bleeding in either the gut or the brain can impact their development.
“Birth itself is a traumatic event,” Fok said. “Whether it’s a vaginal birth or a C-section, they are in a tight space that they have to fit in, and to come out of.” As a result, a newborn’s head can get banged up on the way out, which comes with the risk of developing a brain bleed. Most of the time, a brain bleed from a difficult birth will be mild, with little to no symptoms, but in the event of a more serious bleed, this can lead to some serious complications. Even if the bleed is mild, a lack of vitamin K can make the bleeding worse.
Vitamin K shots get newborns through the early months
A vitamin K shot is administered to a newborn within hours of giving birth, by injecting it into their thigh. One shot is all they need. Although there are oral forms of vitamin K, they don’t absorb nearly as well. Without the vitamin K shot, a newborn has a roughly 1 in 60 to 1 in 250 chance of developing vitamin K deficiency bleeding within a week of birth. If given the vitamin K shot, the risk of bleeding drops dramatically.
Some major points of confusion surrounding the vitamin K shot include the misconception that it is a vaccine (it’s not; it’s an injection of a vitamin), and the bizarre assertion that vitamin K is not a vitamin, which may be due to mixing up its name with the mineral potassium, which has the atomic symbol “K.” As Snopes reports, the claim that the vitamin K shot is a vaccine, and the claim that vitamin K is not a vitamin are both false.
“The interventions we have, they are well-studied, and they decrease a lot of mortality, and morbidity,” Fok said.