Vitamin K helps to prevent excessive bleeding by aiding the clotting of the blood. It is therefore seen as essential that parents ask that new babies are vaccinated with Vitamin K.
Babies who are born newly do not have enough of it stored in the body and they can neither produce enough of the amount they need to help them on their own.
A baby who is given the injection is the one who is protected from too much blood loss if he has an injury to his delicate blood vessel or it bursts all of a sudden to cause excess bleeding.
Without the protection provided by this compound, baby stands a serious risk of serious brain hemorrhage.
According to medical experts, bleeding which is due to Vitamin K deficiency used to be rare but more cases have been recorded in recent times because some parents are turning down the option of including the injection in their immunization plan, although the blood lost as result of excessive bleeding is enough to cause permanent brain damage, they warn.
Vitamin K groups are not seen as food supplements, they are naturally derived from leafy green vegetables like spinach, asparagus, broccoli and soya beans. They are derivable also from eggs, strawberries, meat, and cheese.
A single injection of this Vitamin is what a newborn baby needs for protection. According to reports, there are no known risks to babies except the brief pain as the injection is administered in the thigh. Vitamin K is given after birth, but a mother who is scared of the injection could.