Vitamin K shot at birth? Thoughts?

This is from files I have on Vit K:
 
 
<p class="Body_0020Text">Eye ointment - If you had a sexually transmitted disease while pregnant, this can be passed to your baby and cause blindness.  Rather than test for an STD  before applying the ointment, they simply apply it to all infants.  Silver nitrate used to be used, and it stung the baby’s eyes, sometimes causing eye problems later in life.  Now it is more common to use Erythromycin, which does not sting. However, many mothers object to their babies receiving a treatment that is unnecessary, especially if they are in a monogamous relationship and know they don't have an STD, or if they have been previously tested.  Click Here  to read the medical research studies which explain why choosing to forgo the ointment is a reasonable decision for parents to make because the treatment does not significantly reduce infection, and many infants who receive the treatment contraction the infection anyway.
 
Vitamin K shot - given to make sure the baby has enough clotting factors in its blood.  This can be gotten in sufficient amounts from mothers milk. 
 
Oral-Since oral vitamin K has benefits without any obvious side effects this would be the treatment of choice. Although most pediatricians administer one dose of oral vitamin K, some clinicians advocate giving breastfed infants three doses of oral vitamin K during the following intervals: first week, between week 2 to 3 and at 28 days.
 
 
From "How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of your Doctor" by Dr. Robert  
Mendelsohn MD:
p. 46  
"Many doctors routinely give vitamin K to newborn babies because they have  
been taught that infants are born with a deficiency of this vitamin, which  
influences how rapidly the baby's blood will clot.  That's nonsense, unless  
the mother is severely malnourished; but most doctors do it anyway.  
Administration of vitamin K to the newborn may produce jaundice, which prompts the  
pediatrician to treat it with bilirubin lights (phototherapy).  These lights  
expose the baby to a dozen documented hazards that may require still further  
treatment and possibly affect him for the rest of his life."
p. 265 (in Author's References)  
"The value of routine administration of vitamin K to newborn infants was  
discounted by Drs. J.M. Van Doorm, A.D. Muller, and H.C. Hemker in The Lancet,  
April 17, 1977: "We Conclude that healthy babies, contrary to current beliefs,  
are not likely to have vitamin K deficiency... the administration of vitamin K  
to the newborn is not supported by our findings..." "
Vitamin K administration started when bottle feeding increased. If you are breastfeeding, and don't have a family history of any type of blood clotting disease, it’s propably safe to forego. 
 
<p class="Normal">How do you go about exempting? You have to know your state laws and exemptions and you can check here... http://www.vaclib.org/exemption.htm . Also get in touch with a local state advocacy and see what the experience has been so you are prepared and should you encounter any problems, they can help. http://www.vaclib.org/legal/stateresource.htm  
 
 
 
Viamint K in breast milk is generally enough. Colostrum is rich in vitamin k and nursing your newborn after birth provides it. The minute your baby is born and starts nursing, it starts creating Vitamin K because of bacteria contact. By the 8th day, the Vitamin K levels are such that it is measurable.
 
Many nonvaccinating Mothers will put breast milk in their baby's eyes to clean them out.
 
Many babies also end up with clogged ducts due to Vitamin K after birth as well. 
 
Vit K contains erythromycin-how do you know your newborn baby won't be allergic? 
 
<p class="Normal">http://www.midwifemama.com/Vitamin%20K.pdf  
 
Another Source- 
 
Bronwyn Hancock October 2003 
 
The reason given for administration of Vitamin K is to prevent hemorrhagic disease in newborns.
Hospitals give vitamin K to babies because of the rough way they treat them - prematurity, intravenous feedings, forceps, vacuum extractors, heel pricks, circumcisions. Nature never did intend for babies to be treated this way. Mothers are very gentle with their own babies instinctively, so unless there is some other birth defect as hemophilia, a baby will eventually develop his/her own vitamin K as they mature.
 
Since their little bodies and organs are so immature, newborns cannot metabolize the Vitamin K so they develop a side effect, neonatal jaundice, which necessitates further interventions as visits to the bulirubin lights, which cause dehydration and lowered riboflavin levels, and separation from his/her parents.
 
 
 
 
 
However consider the following:  
 
The form of Vitamin K injected 
 
· The body does not readily utilize synthetic vitamins and minerals. The vitamin K administered by hospitals to newborns is the synthetic phytonadione. The natural forms of vitamin K that are found in many foods, particularly in vegetables such as collard greens, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, brussels sprouts and salad greens, are a different form – they are called phylloquinone or menaquinone. Certain bacteria in the intestinal tract also produce menaquinones. 
 
· Apart from its synthetic nature, it is based on plant Vitamin K and injected. The body utilizes vitamins and minerals that are found in plants and creates the human form it needs, but this is after they go through the digestion process, which obviously does not occur with injections.  
 
· Little is known about the metabolic fate of vitamin K. Almost no free unmetabolized vitamin K appears in bile or urine," states both the 1988 and 1998 Physician's Desk Reference (PDR). "This is especially important due to the fact that it is a fat-soluble vitamin and therefore can accumulate in the body," wrote Vitamin K Resources (VKR) in the extremely well-documented and footnoted 1999 article, Intramuscular Vitamin K Injection: Is K OK?he amount of Vitamin K administered 
 
Toxic ingredients accompanying the Vitamin K 
 
· The vitamin K injections administered by hospitals and manufactured by Merck and Roche and Abbott contain benzyl alcohol as a preservative. The 1989 PDR states that, "there is no evidence to suggest that the small amount of benzyl alcohol contained in AquaMEPHYTON (Merck's vitamin K injection product), when used as recommended, is associated with toxicity." Interestingly, in November 1988, the French medical journal, Dev Pharmacol Ther, published a paper regarding benzyl alcohol metabolism and elimination in babies. The report stated that "...we cannot directly answer the issue of safety of 'low doses' of benzyl alcohol as found in some medications administered to neonates. This study confirms the immaturity of the benzoic acid detoxification process in premature newborns." 
 
· Roche's vitamin K product KONAKION contains ingredients such as phenol (carbolic acid-a poisonous substance distilled from coal tar), propylene glycol (derived from petroleum and used as antifreeze and in hydraulic brake fluid) and acetic acid (an astringent antimicrobial agent that may drastically reduce the amount of natural vitamin K that would have otherwise been produced in the digestive tract). As reported in the PDR and as published in the IM vitamin K packet inserts for Merck, Roche and Abbott, "Studies of carcinogenicity, mutagenesis or impairment of fertility have not been conducted with Vitamin K1 Injection (Phytonadione Injection, USP)." 
 
· The Vitamin K injection can be in a base of polyethoxylated castor oil.  
 
· Vitamin K injections manufactured as recently as 1995 contain hydrochloric acid "for pH adjustment." 
 
Haemolysis, cancer 
 
Effects of Vitamin K administration 
 
· The manufacturers warn on the product insert: "Severe reactions, including fatalities, have occurred during and immediately after intravenous injection of phytonadione even when precautions have been taken to dilute the vitamin and avoid rapid infusion..." 
 
· The Vitamin K shot has been linked to leukaemia, including acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, which is characterized by an increased number of white corpuscles in the blood, and accounts for about 85 percent of childhood leukaemia. Research carried out by Dr. Louise Parker, of the Sir James Spence Institute of Child Health in Newcastle upon Tyne, produced the most startling results. Dr. Louise Parker was quoted in the British Medical Journal in 1998 as stating, "It is not possible, on the basis of currently published evidence, to refute the suggestion that neonatal IM vitamin K administration increases the risk of early childhood leukemia."  
 
The British Journal of Cancer published "Factors associated with childhood cancer" by J. Golding, et al, in 1990. The report indicated that universally administered IM vitamin K injections significantly increase our children's chances of developing childhood cancer. A follow-up study published two years later in the British Medical Journal (Golding J, Paterson K, Greenwood R, Mott M. Intramuscular vitamin K and childhood cancer. BMJ 1992; 305:341-346.) reinforced the findings of the previous study. The authors' comments, in keeping with scientific style, are conservatively stated, but parents who are concerned about the health of their babies will read "danger" between the following lines: "The only two studies so far to have examined the relation between childhood cancer and intramuscular vitamin K have shown similar results and the relation is biologically plausible. The prophylactic benefits against haemorrhagic disease are unlikely to exceed the potential adverse effects from intramuscular vitamin K..."  
 
The chance of your child developing leukaemia from the Vitamin K shot is estimated to be about one in 500 (MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, Vol 2 #3, September 1992) 
 
· Animal studies have linked large doses of vitamin K to a variety of conditions that include anemia, liver damage, kidney damage and death. 
 
· According to the product insert, adverse reactions include haemolysis (or hemolysis - American spelling) (meaning breakdown of red blood cells), haemolytic anaemia (a disorder characterised by chronic premature destruction of red blood cells), hyperbilirubinemia (too much bilirubin in blood) and jaundice (yellow skin and eyes resulting from hyperbilirubinemia), and allergic reactions include face flushing, gastrointestinal upset, rash, redness, pain or swelling at injection site and itching skin. It also warns that large enough doses can cause brain damage in infants and/or impairment to liver function. Hypoxia has also been published as having occurred in infants after Vitamin K administration. 
 
 
The necessity (or lack of necessity) for administration of Vitamin K 
 
· The bleeding condition the Vitamin K shot is supposed to prevent occurs at a rate that is far lower (in a non-Vitamin K injected child) than the rate of occurrence of leukaemia. The haemorrhaging condition may occur in approximately 1 in 10,000 live births 
 
· The condition also will not necessarily be prevented by Vitamin K because it can be caused by other factors than a lack of Vitamin K (e.g. See Arch Dis Child 1999; 81:278 (September)). In fact vaccination is a major cause of haemorrhaging. 
 
· The bacteria that should quickly colonize the gut (in a baby who is breastfed and not given antibiotics directly or as one of the ingredients in vaccines, including most likely the Hepatitis B vaccine) produces Vitamin K anyway, as mentioned above. 
 
· As early as April 17, 1977, an article in one of the world's most esteemed medical journals, the Lancet, discredited the policy of routine vitamin K injections. "We conclude that healthy babies, contrary to current beliefs, are not likely to have a vitamin K deficiency... the administration of vitamin K is not supported by our findings..." Van Doorm et al stated in the Lancet article. VKR cited 21 peer-reviewed reports that had been published in prominent medical journals. All of them concur that policies that mandate the universal injection of newborn babies are not based on sound science. There has been much peer-reviewed evidence generated which questions the efficacy of routine vitamin K injections as sound public health policy. 
 
· Naturopathic physicians and others who successfully adhere to a more natural approach to healthcare advocate that high-risk mothers should increase the amount of vitamin K available to the foetus, and then the breastfeeding infant, by eating adequate amounts of green leafy vegetables and other foods high in Vitamin K, such as alfalfa, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, turnip greens, asparagus, oats and green tea. 
 
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Vitamin K is not in high levels in breast milk and that the baby doesn't begin to make its own until around 8 days of age. It doesn't make sense that neither the baby nor BM would produce something that was so necessary to life. Evolution teaches us that an adaptation would have been made before vitamin K shots were developed. There also is some research linking the shots to leukemia. So there is concern about harmful side effects as well as a feeling that with a gentle birth it's not necessary.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Hospitals give vitamin K to babies because of the rough way they treat them - prematurity, intravenous feedings, forceps, vacuum extractors, heel pricks, circumcisions. Nature never did intend for babies to be treated this way. Mothers are very gentle with their own babies instinctively, so unless there is some other birth defect as hemophilia, a baby will eventually develop his/her own vitamin K as they mature.
Since their little bodies and organs are so immature, newborns cannot metabolize the Vitamin K so they develop a side effect, neonatal jaundice, which necessitates further interventions as visits to the bulirubin lights, which cause dehydration and lowered riboflavin levels, and separation from his/her parents.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">vitamin K (orally) in the event that our baby has bad bruising at birth. Vitamin K is only routinely done because of the HIGH instance of circumcision immediately after birth.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Eye ointment if you have STD issues. It is to prevent blindness caused by several maternal STD's, I think it was chlymidia & either syphilis or gonorrhea.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">human body produces its HIGHEST amount of vit K ever on our entire lives on the 8th day of life.
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">http://www.unhinderedliving.com/newborn.html
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That is pretty much all the research I have read about the Vit K shot...I need to do some more probing about hospital policy and state mandate on the Vit K shot.  I'm pretty sure that I can opt out of that and the eye ointment but I just want to be double sure.

My sons dr is very active regarding vaccine safety to I will shoot him an email after talking to my midwife and the hospital to see what my rights are.  I had no issues opting out of the Hep B with my daughter.  Even the NICU staff was respectful of our decision not to vaccinate her (except for 1 nurse who just had to make her opinions known-there's always 1) and made sure it was noted several times on her chart.

I'm not sure the hospital staff will know what to do with me when we get there...LOL!

I just had my baby and we did the oral K.  I refused every thing and even though the eye gunk is state law they didn't touch him!! I was terrified because I had to have a c-sec and couldn't go with him but they were very respectful of my wishes.  I was ready for a fight but there wasn't one!   I had an in depth birth plan and made sure I told everyone one in that hospital I came into contact with what my wishes were.  Good luck!!

Vit K shots are given to prevent abnormal bleeding (all things considered, the umbilical cord is highly vascularized). According to my Nutrition textbook:

"Newborn infants present a unique case of vitamin K nutrition because they are born with a sterile intestinal tract, and the vitamin K producing bacteria take weeks to establish themselves. At the same time, plasma prothrombin concentrations are low. This reduces the likelihood of fatal blood clotting during the stress of birth. To prevent hemorrhagic disease in the newborn, a single dose of vitamin K is given at birth either orally or by intramuscular injection. Concerns that vitamin K given at birth raises the risks of childhood cancer are unproved and unlikely."

There is no upper limit because toxicity from vitamin K essentially doesn't exist. Therefore I don't see risks associated with giving the vitamin K shot... but the risk of developing blood clots without it seems like it's not worth it (to withhold the vaccine)

The vit K is not the concern....the preservatives in the injection are what I was trying to avoid. Why inject toxins when you can just do oral drops?

I read that the vitamin K shot was to be given to all children becasue of a 1 in 200 ratio of children who have rare difficancies... Now to me that sounds strange because all children are born with minimal to no vitamin K in their system.

I also read that they inject the child in the thigh and they administer 2000X the amount that they actually need and this can cause Jaundice.

I had a VBAC with my son and i told myself that if he needed specail treatment that i would get him the injection. I didn't need an assisted birth so there were no complications or anything in my labour or delivery for my son. I wavvied the injection. He came out perfectly healthy and everything. Mind you, if i had to have another c-section, then he would have had the shot. And where i am they no longer use the silver nitrate they use Erythromycin.

Also in pregnancy they check for the mother having syphilis (sp) twice in pregnancy. I don't know if this helps with GBS positive women but i got it for my son when i tested positive for it.

I hope this helps a bit.