Adjacent to the anti-vaccine movement, a lot of these same people refuse vitamin K shots for their newborn children because of…reasons. Because of this refusal, a lot of babies are bleeding to death unnecessarily.

The hepatitis B vaccine is usually given at the same time as the vitamin K shot, so they are often lumped together within the anti-vaccine world of refusing them for their newborn babies.

This article will review why the vitamin K shot is important to newborns. There are no reasons to refuse it, but that doesn’t stop the anti-vaccine movement from adding the shot to its list of “we don’t care about children, so we’ll refuse this too.”

What is vitamin K?

Vitamin K is a family of fat-soluble vitamins that modify certain proteins, which are necessary for blood coagulation. Without it, the body cannot form blood clots, which will lead to excessive bleeding and eventual death.

Vitamin K₁ is primarily from plants, especially leafy green vegetables. In addition, small amounts are provided by animal-sourced foods. Vitamin K₂ comes primarily from animal-sourced foods, with poultry and eggs being much better sources than beef, pork, or fish. In addition, both of the vitamins are produced by “good” gut bacteria.

For most adults who eat a broad diet of plants and animals, there is usually no concern for a vitamin K deficiency, and they are usually not at risk of uncontrolled bleeding.

Why is the vitamin K shot important for newborns?

All infants, regardless of sex, race, or ethnic background, are at higher risk of vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB) until they start eating regular foods (as discussed above), usually at age 4–6 months, and until the normal intestinal bacteria begin making vitamin K. The reasons for this include the following:

• At birth, babies have little of the vitamin K stored in their bodies because only small amounts pass to them through the placenta from their mothers. Vitamin K refusers often think that the mother passes along sufficient vitamin K to the fetus, which is not based on any scientific evidence.
• The good bacteria that produce the vitamin are not yet present in the newborn’s intestines.
• Breast milk contains low amounts of vitamin K, so exclusively breastfed babies don’t get enough vitamin K from breast milk alone.

VKDB is a serious condition. VKDB occurs when babies cannot stop bleeding because their blood lacks vitamin K to form a clot. The bleeding can occur anywhere on the inside or outside of the body. When the bleeding occurs inside the body, it can be difficult to notice. Commonly, a baby with VKDB will have bleeding into their intestines or into their brain, which can lead to brain damage and even death.

There are no signs of VKDB. We cannot predict if or when it might happen. That is why the shot is strongly recommended for newborns — we do not know which babies might be susceptible to bleeding, so it’s best to protect them all just in case.

According to the CDC, early VKDB is more common, occurring in 1 in 60 to 1 in 250 newborns. However, the risk is much higher for early VKDB among those infants whose mothers used certain medications during the pregnancy. For infants who receive the shot soon after birth, the risk of VKDB is lower than 1 in 1000. Moreover, one in five babies who develop VKDB will die.

VKDB is very rare in the USA, almost exclusively because of the vitamin K shot.

Safety of the vitamin K shot

This vitamin injection is extremely safe. The injection has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1961. Furthermore, according to the CDC, there has been precisely one case reported over 60 years of an allergic reaction to the shot in a newborn infant.

Vitamin K refusers like to point to a black box warning on the injection. A black box warning is an important part of a medical product’s package insert — it means that the healthcare professional prescribing the drug must not ignore the warning. This sounds serious to most people. However, in this case, the black box warning for the shot is not for the vitamin itself, but for the synthetic preservative benzyl alcohol that may be present in some formulations of the injection. The warning advises against using products with benzyl alcohol in premature infants.

The black box warning is for a specific group, premature infants, not for the vast majority of newborn babies. Furthermore, there are vitamin K shots that do not contain benzyl alcohol and are safe for premature infants.

Some vitamin K refusers like to claim that the injection contains phytonadione, “a synthetic (lab-made) chemical” that is not natural. However, phytonadione IS vitamin K₁ — it’s just the official chemical name for the vitamin. It is chemically and biologically identical to the naturally occurring vitamin. Almost ALL vitamins sold in drug and health stores are “man-made.”

Some parents believe in a myth that the vitamin K shot is linked to cancer. This myth has been debunked.

Other refusers like to claim that the injection causes jaundice. A Texas Children’s Hospital blog post dedicated to dispelling myths about the vitamin injection says: “Jaundice associated with vitamin K has been observed only in high-risk babies (such as premature babies) in doses 30-60 times higher than the dose we give.”

Finally, as I wrote above, breastfeeding the baby is not going to prevent VKDB. Even mothers who supplement with vitamin K are still unlikely to provide sufficient vitamin K to their newborns.

Babies are dying from vitamin K refusal

In an article published on 6 May 2026 in ProPublica, Duaa Eldeib wrote about numerous actual cases where parents refused the vitamin K shot and their babies died. Almost all of them would have been prevented with vitamin K.

Eldeib writes:

They entered the world the way babies should, with piercing cries announcing their arrival. They passed their newborn screening tests. Some made it to their 2-week wellness visits without concern.

Then, without warning, their systems began to shut down. A 7-week-old boy in Maryland developed sudden seizures. An 11-pound girl in Alabama stopped breathing for 20 seconds at a time. A baby boy in Kentucky vomited before becoming lethargic. A brown-haired girl in Texas, not yet 2 weeks old, bled around her belly button.

Desperate to save them, records show, doctors inserted tubes into their airways and hooked them up to IVs. They ordered blood transfusions. They spent half an hour trying to resuscitate one boy until his parents told them they could stop. They shaved another boy’s soft locks to embed a needle directly into his skull to reduce the pressure in his brain.

None of it was enough.

At the morgue, the babies were brought in with their diapers and blankets and with their hospital ID bracelets still wrapped around their tiny ankles. The pathologists’ findings were like those you would typically see in ailing adults, not newborns — the kind of bleeding seen during strokes or brain tissue loss similar to what happens when radiation is administered to treat cancer.

Their autopsies, which took place over the last several years, all came to the same conclusion: The deaths were caused, in whole or in part, by a rare but potentially fatal condition known as vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

All because the parents refused to give their newborn babies a safe and very effective vitamin K shot. These children died because of their parents’ ignorance of the medical necessity of vitamin K.

These stories are not rare. Apparently, hundreds of children die each year from spontaneous bleeding in the brain, all as a result of vitamin K deficiency. And most of these deaths could have been prevented with the vitamin K shot.

Unfortunately, the news doesn’t seem to be good regarding vitamin K injections. In a paper published on 20 January 2026 in JAMA, the refusal of vitamin K shots for newborns has been significantly growing every year since 2019. We are seeing similar trends for vaccines, so they go hand-in-hand.

Like with vaccines, the vitamin K shot is probably a victim of its own success. Because vitamin K deficiency bleeding is so rare, because of the shot, parents don’t hear about the harm it can cause by refusing the shot.

Summary

I hate repeating myself, as I do with vaccines, but the vitamin K shot is safe and saves the lives of babies. It’s not even a discussion.

I can’t even believe I have to write about this. Vitamin K saves lives, and I don’t understand why parents are starting to refuse this lifesaving drug. It makes no sense.

Citations

• Klebanoff MA, Read JS, Mills JL, Shiono PH. The risk of childhood cancer after neonatal exposure to vitamin K. N Engl J Med. 1993 Sep 23;329(13):905-8. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199309233291301. PMID: 8361503.
• Scott K, Miller E, Culhane JF, Greenspan J, Handley SC, Lo JY, Knake LA, McKenney KM, Burris HH, Dysart K. Trends in Vitamin K Administration Among Infants. JAMA. 2026 Jan 20;335(3):272-274. doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.21460. Erratum in: JAMA. 2026 May 12;335(18):1640. doi: 10.1001/jama.2026.4634. PMID: 41359326; PMCID: PMC12687205.

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