More parents are declining vitamin K injections for their newborns, raising concern among pediatricians who warn that misinformation and growing distrust of medical interventions could leave more babies vulnerable to potentially fatal bleeding.
The proportion of US newborns who did not receive the vitamin K shot increased from 2.92% in 2017 to 5.18% in 2024, according to a national analysis of electronic health records published in JAMA in January.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the proportion of US newborns who did not receive a vitamin K shot rose from 2.92% in 2017 to 5.18% in 2024.
Doctors say the trend is especially concerning because vitamin K deficiency bleeding, while uncommon, can occur suddenly and cause severe bleeding in the brain and other parts of the body.
A Preventable Death Raises New Concerns
The warning comes as pediatric specialists recount cases in which babies who initially appeared healthy later developed life-threatening bleeding after not receiving vitamin K at birth.
In one case described in a Pediatrics report, a newborn developed signs of bleeding just weeks after birth. Testing showed the infant had low levels of several proteins needed for normal blood clotting.
Doctors administered vitamin K and used additional treatments to control the bleeding, but the infant died after suffering severe blood loss.
Allison Wheeler, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said the death could likely have been prevented with a vitamin K injection at birth.
"This is not a unique scenario," Wheeler said. "This is unfortunately all too common."
The case has renewed concerns among doctors who say they are seeing more families question interventions that were once routinely accepted as part of newborn care.
Newborns Are Vulnerable to Bleeding
Babies are naturally born with low levels of vitamin K, a nutrient the body needs to produce proteins that help blood clot.
Pediatricians recommend that newborns receive the shot after birth because babies naturally have limited levels of the nutrient needed for normal blood clotting.
Without the injection, infants face a higher risk of vitamin K deficiency bleeding, a potentially life-threatening condition that can cause severe bleeding in different parts of the body. In some cases, the bleeding occurs in the brain, which can cause permanent neurological damage, stroke-like injuries, or death.
Before routine vitamin K injections were introduced in 1961, as many as one in 60 newborns developed vitamin K deficiency bleeding during the first week of life.
A single injection given after birth can protect most babies through the first four to six months of life, when their diets and intestinal bacteria begin providing more vitamin K. Breast milk, while considered the ideal first food for infants, contains relatively little vitamin K.
Misinformation Is Changing the Conversation
Vitamin K injections are not vaccines, but pediatricians say the treatment has increasingly become caught up in broader debates over vaccines, pharmaceuticals and conventional medicine.
Some parents decline the shot because they fear needles or want to minimize medical interventions immediately after birth. Others have encountered claims online suggesting that the injection could be more harmful than the bleeding it is designed to prevent.
Pediatricians say those concerns can make conversations difficult, particularly when parents are exposed to conflicting health information on social media.
David Hill, a Seattle pediatrician and American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson, said building trust with families is often essential when discussing the injection.
Some parents who initially refuse eventually agree after speaking with their child's doctor, while others continue to decline it.
Pediatricians say parents who decline vitamin K should understand that severe bleeding may not be immediately obvious.
Changes such as unusual movements that resemble seizures, unresponsiveness, difficulty feeding or weakness affecting one side of the body can signal a neurological emergency.
Doctors also urge parents to tell medical professionals if their newborn did not receive vitamin K. That information can help clinicians consider vitamin K deficiency bleeding when evaluating unexplained symptoms.
