What you should know about Vitamin K for newborns...

💜👶🏼 Vitamin K 👶🏼💜

Following on from my post about the benefits of Delayed Cord Clamping, a topic that I did a lot of research about.

Here, I would like to share with you some information about the Vitamin K injection/drops that are routinely given to babies after birth.

Yes, I do share information on my blog that some may find controversial (see my past posts regarding Folic acid, immunisations, Breastfeeding through toddler years and many more )

However, Why shouldn’t we question everything and find out more? Especially when it comes to our precious children. Researching and questioning allows us as parents to have a choice (and thankfully we do in the UK)

💜 A child is a gift.. One we should not be messing with.. A gift that is beautifully wrapped, perfectly created and comes complete...

💜 From a sperm & egg, to bone, muscles and a brain. The body is capable of doing things that even the most sophisticated computers cannot duplicate.. Yet the body forgot to give adequate Vitamin K at birth?

The question that everyone misses is this, are babies born deficient in Vitamin K? Has nature somehow made a mistake?

A newborn's natural prothrombin level (a protein present in blood plasma) reach normal levels between days 5 and 7, peaking around the eighth day of life, related to the buildup of bacteria in baby's digestive tract to produce the vitamin K that is necessary to form this blood clotting factor. Day 8 is said to be the only time in a baby's life when the prothrombin level will naturally exceed 100 percent of normal.

First, in order to absorb vitamin K we need a functioning biliary and pancreas system, an infant’s digestive system isn’t fully developed at birth which is why we breastfeed, delaying solids until they are at least 6-months-old, and why breast milk only contains a small amount of highly absorbable vitamin k.

Too much vitamin K can tax the liver, cause jaundice and brain damage (among other things). As baby ages and the digestive tract, mucosal lining, gut flora, and enzyme functions develop, then baby can begin to process more vitamin K.

Secondly, the umbilical cord and placenta blood contains stem cells, which protect a baby against bleeding and perform all sorts of needed repairs inside an infant’s body after birth, in order for a baby to get this protective boost of stem cells, cord-cutting needs to be delayed and the blood needs to remain THIN so stem cells can easily travel and perform their functions at the rate needed. So baby has his/her own protective mechanism to prevent bleeding and repair organs. But that wasn’t discovered until after we started routinely giving infants vitamin K injections.. And now some countries don't do the injections and the oral vit K drops are either routine or suggested.

Third, a newborn will have low levels of vitamin K because the intestines are not yet colonized with the bacteria needed to synthesize it, and the “vitamin K cycle” isn’t fully functional in newborns. So, it makes sense then to bypass the gut and inject vitamin K right into the muscle right? Except baby’s kidneys aren’t fully functional either. Hence the adverse effects and the packaging having a "black warning box" on the insert.

Finally, several clinical observations support the hypothesis that children have natural protective mechanisms that justify their low vitamin K levels at birth. I don’t know about you, but we should probably figure out why that is before we inject or give oral drops now and worry about it later.

Unrestricted access to the breast in the early days after birth is important, due to the higher levels of vitamin K in colostrum. The importance of early feeding has been recognised since the 1940's. Babies who have been fed within their first 24 hours have significantly better coagulation times than babies not fed until after 24 hours.

Vitamin K levels in the breast milk rise markedly in response to the mother eating vitamin K rich foods (predominantly leafy green, strawberries etc) or taking good quality vitamin supplements during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

For further reading, from a midwife’s perspective please click on the link below:

https://www.aims.org.uk/journal/item/vitamin-k-an-alternative-perspective

All things baby and me -x-