Infants are bleeding out after parents decline vitamin K shots given at birth

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https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/05/infants-are-bleeding-to-death-after-parents-shun-routine-vitamin-k-shots/

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US alternative to abortion.

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So they don’t grow up with neglectful parents who shouldn’t have kids, and the parents get put in prison, right?

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It would be nice if the article said why babies are developing vitamin k deficiencies

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Newborns don’t have good stores of vitamin K. The placenta does not give an infant a lot of vitamin K because it can affect bone growth and development. So it needs to be supplemented after delivery. Babies only drink milk, and if they drink breast milk or formula, neither has good supplemental vitamin K.

Adults also can’t get enough vitamin K from milk. Adults get vitamin K by eating foods that are rich in it, like green leafy vegetables, blueberries or kiwis. Besides finding it in foods, adults also get vitamin K from helpful gut germs (i.e., bacteria) that aid in digestion and gut health. The intestines of babies lack those bacteria because they are still growing. For these reasons, we need to give it to them.

Source .

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Thanks for that, I wonder how humans evolved into a position of vitamin deficiency in the early lifecycle.

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It’s not evolution if it didn’t take an incredibly long time. This is likely a recent development (especially in that scale), from the last century or so, I’d wager.

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Yeah, that feels right, I’d love to see a study on what changed

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