Most parents choose vitamin K to protect their newborns. But resistance is growing.
Photo by FatCamera, courtesy iStockphoto
Neonatologist Ann Downey, MD, MS, still remembers witnessing a baby suffer a brain bleed over a decade ago, an experience she described as “devastating.” She has since seen parents refuse to allow their newborns to receive a vitamin K shot, a routine preventive procedure that can keep brain bleeds from happening.
Refusal of vitamin K shots has grown over the past decade. In Minnesota, where Downey works, parental refusal rates rose from 0.9% in 2015 to 1.6% in 2019, according to research presented in April at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting.
“This trend is concerning, because our review also found that babies who do not get the vitamin K injection are 81 times more likely to develop vitamin K deficiency bleeding,” study author Kate Semidey, MD, of Florida International University in Miami, said in a news release.
Vitamin K injections are given to newborns because they cannot produce the vitamin until they begin eating solid foods. Because babies need vitamin K for blood clotting, skipping the shot increases risk for early vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can lead to brain damage or death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vitamin K shots are not vaccines. But the skepticism over the injections mirrors concerns of parents who reject routine child vaccines, which are growing because of misinformation and mistrust. Parents who refuse vitamin K shots are six times more likely to refuse early childhood vaccinations, Downey said.
Parents are also getting more of their medical advice from social media, where algorithms are designed for engagement and less for health and science accuracy, according to Joanna Parga-Belinkie, MD, a clinical neonatologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“I always just encourage families to have a conversation with their pediatrician, because with this barrage of information, or this firehose of information that they're being shot with, to sort through it all is really difficult,” Parga-Belinkie told The Nation's Health. “Pediatricians are really dedicated to helping families really understand what is the truth amongst all that noise.”
Downey and a multi-disciplinary team of health professionals at Children's Minnesota Hospital have developed educational tools for clinicians and parents, such as a family information sheet that addresses misconceptions about the vitamin K shot and a refusal form that details risks to newborns.
“There's something very formal about signing your name to words that give the weight to the decision,” Downey said. “We really do want parents to understand they've got verbal opportunities to engage on this subject matter.”
Next steps are to partner with colleagues in obstetrics to include vitamin K education in prenatal care.
“It feels that as pediatricians and neonatologists that we're a little bit late to the party,” Downey said. “By the time we come and talk about it with a family, they've already made up their mind.”
For more information, visit www.cdc.gov/vitamin-k-deficiency.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
