Why is it exactly that hospitals give Vitamin K injections to all newborns? I was asked this question again recently, and I wish more people were asking. I was taught that Vitamin K does nothing for bruising, believe it or not. Hospital staffs will tell you it is a very high risk to decline Vitamin K, that it prevents internal hemorrhaging in newborns and yadda yadda.
We are told that all babies arrive with low levels of Vitamin K. Think about it: If ALL babies have “low” levels of Vitamin K, maybe that “low” level is not low at all, it is NORMAL. And, just what if there is a REASON why the levels begin where they do and it has to do with the viscosity, the density, of the blood and the rate of flow — that it has to be at just the right “speed” and “weight” in order to help keep one valve open and the other closed so that the oxygenated blood (that was not necessary to be circulating in the lungs while the baby was still in utero as a “sea creature”) so that the lungs are being bathed, as they need to be, in oxygen – and that everything in the baby arrives EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE…
This is, of course, a very simplified explanation, I’ve been up two nights in a row… both first babies, both boys, Theadeus was ten poun,ds seven ounces and born in the water, no stitches, and the Benjamin, six pounds eight ounces, born two and a half weeks before the “guess date,” arrived fifty three hours after the membranes released — labor started and eight hours later, he appeared!
I also learned that the heart attacks in young athletes may have to do with Vitamin K injections as newborns!!!!! The injection changes the viscosity of the blood and how things pump right from the very start. We must remember that most of us did NOT get Vitamin K, none of the world’s peoples got Vitamin K . . . and . . . in fact, here is a question to consider: What in the world are we doing injecting something into babies that was developed in a laboratory???? As if God/Goddess/Nature/Spirit/Creative Intelligence remembered all the other Vitamins, but, oh no, can you believe it, palm to forehead, forgot Vitamin K????
And oral vitamin K??? Who thought that one up? Some babies spit it up – maybe the smarter ones? Who is making money on these things? What mothers allowed their babies to be in the trials for these products? How well were the studies done and by whom – who stood to gain? What proof do we have that administering this is truly the right thing for all babies? The only thing that babies should be getting is colostrum!!! And interesting that Vitamin K was found in the fatty portion of breastmilk . . . that was a surprise to researchers.
And don’t get me talking about ingesting Vitamin D, either . . . .
As far as hospitals’ concerns about hemorrhaging, well, perhaps they ought to be more concerned about the risks they are taking with your child’s future health. The chance of your child developing leukemia from the Vitamin K shot is estimated to be about one in 500 (MIDIRS Midwifery Digest, Vol 2 #3, September 1992) 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 leukemia. The hemorrhaging condition may occur in approximately 1 in 10,000 live births. More information is available here.