More newborns are suffering fatal bleeding in nearly all of their organs because their parents are skipping a vital shot, doctors have warned. In the hours after birth, newborns are typically given a shot of vitamin K, which they are naturally deficient in after birth. One shot of the vitamin is crucial for preventing vitamin K deficient bleeding (VKDB), a rare but deadly condition that causes bleeding in nearly every organ.
Research Highlights Increased Risk
Research cited by the CDC shows infants who do not receive a vitamin K shot at birth are 81 times more likely to develop VKDB than those who get it, and about one in five babies with the condition die. The shot, which is not a vaccine, is only given one time before a newborn leaves the hospital and has been routinely provided in the US since 1961. However, recent research has found the number of babies not receiving a vitamin K shot has increased 77 percent since 2017, a sign that parents are increasingly turning it down.
Anti-Vaccine Sentiment Blamed
Although it is not a vaccine, experts fear the vitamin K shot has been included in a nationwide wave of rising anti-vaccine sentiment and declining vaccination rates for once-eliminated illnesses like measles and polio. Physicians have emphasized that they, along with leading medical authorities like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), highly recommend the vitamin K shot at birth to protect against devastating bleeding.
"I'm picking vitamin K every day," Dr Anna Morad, a pediatrician at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, told ProPublica, which investigated the increase in vitamin K refusal. "Absolutely."
National Study Shows Alarming Trends
In December, a national study of more than 5 million births was published in JAMA Network, which found that in 2024, 5.2 percent of babies born in the US had not received the vitamin K shot. This is a 77 percent increase from 2.9 percent in 2017. Few hospitals track the rate of vitamin K refusal, but ProPublica found that Mercy's hospital system, which is based in St Louis and runs facilities in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, saw 1,442 babies across all of its hospitals that did not receive the shot in 2025. This is up from 536 in 2021.
St Luke's Health System in Idaho has also seen gradual increases in refusal rates every year since the start of the COVID pandemic. In 2020, 3.8 percent of families across the health system declined the vitamin K shot. That number jumped to 9.8 percent in 2025.
Understanding VKDB Risk
VKDB occurs in less than one in 100,000 infants who receive the vitamin K shot, according to the CDC. But without the shot, that risk increases to between one in 14,000 and one in 25,000. The agency does not consider VKDB a notifiable condition, meaning instances do not have to be reported to the agency and they may be undercounted.
It is unclear why some infants bleed uncontrollably without the shot and some have no complications, but research has shown vitamin K is vital for helping blood clot. In 2022, the AAP updated its policy statement to stress that the vitamin K shot is safe and effective.
"Vitamin K injection does not contain mercury. Vitamin K does not cause cancer. The vitamin K injection used in newborns is safe. The dose is not too high for newborns," the agency wrote.
Experts Call for Awareness
"We're a victim of our own success," Dr Ivan Hand, the director of neonatology at Kings County Hospital Center in New York and the co-author of the AAP statement, told ProPublica. "Since we've been treating babies with vitamin K, we haven't seen much deficiency bleeding, so people think it doesn't exist."
Last month, during a House subcommittee meeting, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime vaccine skeptic, was pressed to reassure parents that the vitamin K shot is safe. "I've never said, literally never said, anything about it," Kennedy said.
Representative Kim Schrier, a Democrat from Washington state, told the secretary: "That's exactly the point. You don't say anything about it, but the doubt you've created about all of medicine and science is causing parents to make dangerous decisions."
Conservative podcaster Candace Owens expressed doubt about the shot in a 2023 episode, stating: "What Big Pharma is saying is that we realize that babies were born wrong. They don't have enough vitamin K, and so we're going to give them what they always needed. God designed us wrong."
The vitamin K shot is one of three main interventions given to newborns before they leave the hospital. The other two are antibiotic ointment in the eyes and the hepatitis B vaccine, which the CDC stopped recommending every newborn get in December in favor of "individual-based decision-making." In March, a federal judge temporarily blocked Kennedy's revised vaccine schedule that included that new recommendation.
"A lot of the providers don't have this on their radar," Dr Jaspreet Loyal, a pediatric hospitalist at Yale Medicine, added to ProPublica. "The lack of data is almost acting like a reassurance for families that this risk is worth taking."
