Thread: Vitamin K shot?

What is everyone's opinion on the vitamin K shot at birth? I can't actually remember if we declined it with my daughter or not. I know we delayed the hep B shot until 3 months but can't recall if we did vitamin K or not. I googled it but haven't found anything really persuasive on either side.

Mine always got that shot, as I'd rather be safe than sorry. None of my babies have had any issues with it. But with shots, it definitely is a personal choice!

I did lots of research on Vit K, and if I'd had a girl I would have declined.

But I had a boy and we circ'ed for religious/cultural reasons (SO is Jewish). I don't know about other states, but Physicians here can't circ, even on the 8th day without the K shot.

My understanding is that Vit. K helps with blood clotting in newborns, which shouldn't be an issue with a healthy newborn who won't have any type of surgical procedure (like circumcision). Finn was born at home (and we decided against having him circumcised), so the Vit. K shot was a non-issue, until he had to be admitted to the hospital for surgery for an intestinal repair at one day old.

Ditto the above post. DDs birth went smoothly so we forewent the shot. DH insisted on giving her oral vit K supplements so we did those. The oral supplement isn't taken up as readily and I think we even forgot to give her the third dose so it was a bit of a compromise. IMO, if babies were meant to be born with that much vit K in their system they would be. I fear messing with things like that. However, if I'd had a traumatic birth I would have opted for the shot.

Our midwife offers the oral.

We opted to wait and see how the birth went, and fortunately it was non-traumatic so we skipped the K entirely.

Like many of the other posters we had a non-tramatic birth and opted not to give the Vit K. We will do the same this time around. If the birth goes well we will skip it.

We had choosen not to get it during our last birth but did end up getting it for him due to birth trama. If all goes well this time with our LO then we will decline it.

For me, it depends on the birth. We declined it for 3 kids and got it for 1, based upon their birth.

I also take alfalfa towards the end of pg-- just to help my own vit k reserves....