Newborn bleeding diagnoses rise as more babies miss vitamin K shot
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The share of newborns not receiving a routine vitamin K shot more than doubled between 2017 and 2025, while infant bleeding diagnoses surged, according to two new studies.
Why it matters: Newborns naturally have low levels of vitamin K. The shot — recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1961 — prevents potentially life-threatening bleeding, including in the brain.
What we're hearing: "The stories just kept flooding" in about families declining vitamin K shots, Heather Burris, a neonatologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and study co-author, tells Axios.
- Burris says those accounts, shared during a meeting of neonatologists, prompted her team to investigate whether the apparent trend was reflected in hospital records.
Meanwhile, misinformation about the shot's safety is circulating on social media, particularly among parents who want to avoid what they consider to be unnecessary medical intervention.
- But Burris cautions that skipping the shot can lead to serious complications requiring far more intensive medical care.
By the numbers: The share of newborns without documented vitamin K shots rose from 3.1% in 2017 to 6.8% in 2025, according to the JAMA investigation of more than 5.2 million infants in the U.S.
- A separate JAMA Pediatrics study of 11 million infants found that the diagnosis rate for vitamin K deficiency bleeding more than quadrupled, from 24 to 107 per 100,000 infants between 2017 and 2025.
- Bleeding remained uncommon overall, but babies who received vitamin K were significantly less likely to experience it.
The fine print: Neither study provided state-by-state rates or determined why individual newborns missed the shot.
- The JAMA investigation found no substantial difference in receipt patterns between rural and urban communities.
Between the lines: The shot is a vitamin, not a vaccine. But like childhood vaccines, the vitamin K shot may be a "victim of its own success," researchers wrote in JAMA Pediatrics.
- In other words: Researchers suggest that the condition it prevents has become so rare, largely due to the shot, that parents can now underestimate the risk.
- Burris likens getting the vitamin K shot to wearing a seat belt: a simple precaution against an unlikely but potentially devastating outcome.
What we're watching: Whether the growing hesitation extends to other routine newborn shots, including the hepatitis B vaccine.
- Burris says doctors are keeping an eye on those rates and whether recent measles outbreaks might make parents more willing to vaccinate their children.
