Vitamin K

[NickyB]

I'm just reading up about this, I meant to ask the Doctor at my last appointment but forgot. Can I pick some brains?

So, it's to prevent internal bleeding after birth?
An injection at birth (only one?) or three tablets over a month?
Suggested possible link to leukaemia, but unproven.
Is it something everyone has (or is it a risk group thing, or do people decline, and why)?

Just trying to figure certain stuff out, no-ones mentioned this to me yet and I'm beginning to think about... labour! Eek

Thanks

 

[Mildly]

We talked about it in my antenatal classes and got a leaflet on it. It is just the one injection after birth which we have decide to go for. The study that linked the injection to leukaemia was later disproven as the study was done on a very small number of babies (in Bristol, I believe). I think the problem was that there were too few babies and the geographical area wasn't wide enough to present a true cross section of the population.

It does help with clotting as a very small number of newborn babies (about 1 in 10,000) suffer from vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB). Both ways of administering the vit K appear effective at preventing VKDB. Apparently breastmilk has less vit K than formula and if you go for the oral liquid dose you need three doses if breastfeeding but two if formula fed. Don't think they give tablets for it either. It used to only be given to high-risk babies i.e. ones born before 37 weeks or ones who were bruised during birth but not all VKDB sufferers fell into the high risk categories so they rolled it out to all babies.

We came to the conclusion that the benefits outweighed the risks and we wanted to get it over and done with so the injection seemed preferable.

Good luck with your decision Also even though you're thinking about labour, does it seem like you're planning it for someone else? I can't seem to get it through my brain that it'll actually be me giving birth

 

[NickyB]

Super, thanks for your help. I'd rather go for the injection too, personally I don't have a problem with them, and then it's done then isn't it?

And sort of, I'm not really giving it that much thought yet. Not enough I guess, think I'm in denial!! I certainly can't imagine it being ME in the labour suite...

 

[Redshoes]

They usually give baby's the VitK jab at birth unless you say you want otherwise, they really should ask but that's the practise I wanted to limit the jabs Isaac had to have so went for the Oral Dose, of which he only had one as I was breastfeeding and so apparently 3 aren't needed The studys done originally compared human VitK milk levels to that of cows, so basically not human, there's really no conclusive facts as to whether or not babies are meant to have what doses of VitK they do at birth or not. I found the whole VitK thing quite inconclusive to be honest, and somewhat confusing, I hope you found some useful information and make the right choice for you and your baby, very best wishes

I don't wish to add more reading for you, but I did appreciate this article;
http://www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol13No2/vitk.htm