MIX Wellness

Bringing clean living to the masses

  • Meet Me
  • Events
  • Essential Oils
  • The New You

The Truth About The Vitamin K Shot in Newborns: Is It Worth The Risk?

8 Comments

The Truth About the Vitamin K Shot in Newborns: Is It Worth The Risk? | www.mixwellness.comHaving a baby is serious business. I mean, you’re literally growing a human being and bringing them into this world. And you’re responsible for keeping them out of harm’s way. That’s no joke!

The birthing experience with each of my girls was dramatically different. Truth be told, with my first, I was a hard-core believer in modern medicine. After all, I was a trained RN with loaaaads of experience under my belt and had it drilled into me from day one in nursing school that giving birth was indeed, a medical event, fraught with all kinds of tubes, alarms, and interventions to “help” get that sweet babe from point A to point B. 

The Truth About the Vitamin K Shot in Newborns: Is It Worth The Risk? | www.mixwellness.comWith my second, 3 years later, I woke up. BIG TIME. I found myself clear on the other side of the crunchy scale, and with the exception of birthing at home, went rogue on my Western medicine ideals. It was amazing and something I wished I had done with my #1.

The decisions parents-to-be are faced with can be paralyzing. Besides the “analysis paralysis” that goes along with naming the little cherub {Mila, my #1, was “baby” for the first 12 hours of her life}, the choices are endless – many of which must take place long before the little one steps out of the womb.

Diapering systems and co-sleeping arrangements aside, one important decision that must take place is whether or not to give the Vitamin K shot to your baby. First, a bit of background…

What is the Vitamin K shot?

Vitamin K is necessary to ensure normal blood clotting in both adults and babies. There are two main forms of vitamin K. Vitamin K1, found in leafy greens and broccoli, and Vitamin K2, found in organ meats, grass-fed butter, aged cheeses, fermented foods, and egg yolks.

In most babies, the blood clotting mechanism does not become fully established until the 8th day after birth, therefore babies are deemed to have insufficient levels of Vitamin K.

In some instances, this can lead to vitamin K-deficient bleeding {VKDB}, formerly known as hemorrhagic disease of the newborn {HDN}. VKDB is internal bleeding in the brain and other organs that can occur from 3 to 7 weeks after birth, leading to serious injury, brain damage, or potentially even death. This happens in about 5 out of 100,000 births, and 9 times out of ten, it affects breastfed babies, since commercial formulas are supplemented with unnaturally high levels of vitamin K {source}. Scary stuff.

While this is a truly controversial subject, I believe the low vitamin K levels babies are born with is nature’s master plan {a form of biological wisdom, if you will}, since a hemorrhage occurring in a newborn after a normal birth is rare. However, hospital births provide more potential for traumatic injury to occur, particularly if forceps/vacuums are used or the baby is born via c-section.

To prevent VKDB, newborns routinely receive a vitamin K shot shortly after birth. The question remains, is this “routine” shot really necessary?

My beef with this “routine” practice 

The Truth About the Vitamin K Shot in Newborns: Is It Worth The Risk? | www.mixwellness.comNow believe me, the last thing I want to do is put my sweet little babe in harm’s way and at risk for these rare, yet frightening consequences. Here’s the problem with this “routine” practice:

  1. The vitamin K being administered via injection isn’t the natural stuff you’re going to get from your side of sautéed kale {loaded with coconut oil} or eggies and kraut. Nope. It’s synthetic vitamin K, also known as “phytonadione”. Synthetic anything is bad news.
  2. The standard dose of vitamin K being administered moments after birth is off the charts, 20,000 times the necessary dose {source}. Twenty. THOUSAND. Times!
  3. Adding insult to literal injury, the injection may also contain preservatives that can be toxic to delicate, young immune systems.
  4. Inflicting pain immediately after birth has the potential to cause emotional damage and trauma to a sweet, unassuming newborn {that has just been yanked from the warm, cozy womb}. Some will argue that newborns don’t “remember” these sorts of things or worse, barbaric circumcisions, but I beg to differ. I’d rather not chance it.
  5. Any invasive procedure that pierces the skin, such as an injection, is an open invitation for infection at a time the newborn’s immune system is uber immature.
  6. The liver of a newborn does not begin to fully function until 3 or 4 days after birth. This means that the ability to detoxify the insanely large dose of synthetic vitamin K is seriously hindered.

Is the vitamin K shot necessary?

While the injection itself may be questionable, at best, for the above reasons, it should be made crystal clear that without question, newborns absolutely, positively need to have normal levels of vitamin K. Having said that, the shot is not the end all, be all answer to normalizing these levels and preventing the devastating consequences that can occur. There are safe, non-invasive ways to do this. 

Next, I’ll be sharing safe and natural alternatives to the vitamin K shot, so you can make the most informed decision for your babe. Read that here. 

Wanna Pin this? Click here.

The Truth About the Vitamin K Shot in Newborns: Is It Worth The Risk? | www.mixwellness.com

 

✂️ Cut Out the Wellness Noise

I personally promise not to send you wasteful spammy emails. 🚫✉️

When I send an email, I AM sharing my knowledge on Essential Oils, Cutting out Sugar, Detoxing, DIY, and so much more to help you on your wellness journey. 🥗🧶🌍

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. ✉️

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

If I don't deliver value, tell me what I can do to deliver you 10x the value than the "other lady". Powered by ConvertKit

Related

✂️ Cut Out the Wellness Noise

I personally promise not to send you wasteful spammy emails. 🚫✉️

When I send an email, I AM sharing my knowledge on Essential Oils, Cutting out Sugar, Detoxing, DIY, and so much more to help you on your wellness journey. 🥗🧶🌍

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. ✉️

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

If I don't deliver value, tell me what I can do to deliver you 10x the value than the "other lady". Powered by ConvertKit

Filed Under: Holistic & Natural Parenting Tagged With: holistic health, holistic parenting, how to boost vitamin K levels in newborns, natural parenting, natural vitamin K shot alternatives, newborn vitamin K shot risks, risks of vitamin K shot, side effects of vitamin K shot, vitamin K shot in infants, vitamin K-deficient bleeding

Comments

  1. Janelle says

    May 8, 2014 at 7:43 pm

    I totally agree with you that it is unsafe and the risk out weighs the benefit. It seems like there is a slim chance that a baby would bleed enough to need to clot or else die. I just had a baby in Dec 2012 at a hospital. Originally I was going to refuse all vax because I am totally uncomfortable with them. I submitted a birth plan refusing the Vit K and Hep B shots. A few weeks before my C Section, I met with a pediatrician from India who practiced a combination of western and eastern medicine. We talked about detoxing my older son using homeopathy and so I trusted her opinion. She recommended we get the shot, and that it was necessary in her opinion. So in the hospital, I never updated my birthing plan and the nurses sent a pediatrician into my OR to tell me how we needed to do the Vitamin K shot! I was so angry that they were trying to force that on me. Good luck to any women trying to refuse that in a hospital setting. Garbage drug pushers! (Can you tell I’m still angry? lol) Oh just to note though, none of the nurses or doctors have a problem with refusal of Hep B. Several stated they don’t agree with that shot for infants anyway (as long as mom doesn’t have it), seeing how it is an STD.

    Reply
    • Kristen Boucher says

      May 9, 2014 at 7:30 pm

      Janelle – AMEN, mama! What an experience for you! Yes, it really depends on the practitioner doing ’rounds’ at the hospital when your little cherub is there. We were read the riot act by the first one and then the next day, the second one was waaaaay more laid back about it – even though we were still considered to be ‘reckless’ – can you imagine?! :) And yes, Hep B – what a crock that is. We didn’t get any flack about refusing that one for either babe. Thanks so much for your comment and readership! :)

      Reply
  2. Silvia says

    June 14, 2018 at 12:28 am

    Better be safe than sorry; just because something is synthetic does not make it bad.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/insanepeoplefacebook/comments/8qv0vi/antivax_mother_denies_vitamin_k_shot_for_newborn/?st=JIE1IQAP&sh=8683f3b4

    Reply
    • Sue says

      August 29, 2018 at 4:20 pm

      I hope Kristen doesn’t own any clothes with polyester, because otherwise she’s a HYPOCRITE

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You have to agree to the comment policy.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mix Wellness - Young Living Banner
Mix Wellness - Superwoman Slim Down

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Search

Copyright © 2021