Nonreceipt of Newborn Vitamin K and Risk of Bleeding.

Nonreceipt of newborn intramuscular vitamin K rose from 3.1% in 2017 to 6.8% in 2025, and infants who missed it had higher bleeding risk by 6 months.

• Why it matters: Refusing prophylactic vitamin K is increasing in the US, potentially leaving more newborns vulnerable to vitamin K deficiency bleeding.
• What they did: In a retrospective cohort of 5,240,780 infants born at 35–43 weeks’ gestation (2017–2025) in Epic Cosmos hospitals across 50 states, bleeding within 6 months was identified using ICD-10 codes and analyzed with robust Poisson regression.
• The result: Bleeding by 6 months increased to 394.0 per 10,000 among nonrecipients versus 221.8 per 10,000 among recipients, with adjusted risk ratio 1.47; nonrecipients also had higher intracranial bleeding (ARR 2.43) and mortality with concurrent birth-hospitalization bleeding (ARR 2.69).

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.