Rates of life-threatening bleeding in U.S. infants have risen sharply since 2017 as parents increasingly refuse protective newborn doses of vitamin K, a trend that coincides with a growing wave of mistrust toward vaccines and other newborn interventions, two studies published on Thursday found.
The studies are the first to show that bleeding rates in U.S. infants have increased along with rising refusals of vitamin K shots.
Babies are not born with enough vitamin K, an essential nutrient that helps blood clot, and vitamin K injections at birth have been standard for over 60 years. As a result, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not track rates of vitamin K refusals or bleeding.
