Communicating Risk of Intramuscular Vitamin K Declination in the US
JAMA 10.1001/jama.2026.23146November 05, 2026 at 11:05 AM EST
In this Editorial, authors write that one additional infant would experience a bleeding event for every 114 newborns who do not receive vitamin K. Authors call for a broader response involving pediatricians, obstetric clinicians, nurses, public health agencies, and industry, including stronger public education, better surveillance, and access to a regulated oral vitamin K alternative for families who firmly refuse intramuscular prophylaxis.
Related JAMA Research: Nonreceipt of Newborn Vitamin K and Risk of Bleeding
Related JAMA Pediatrics Research: Vitamin K Deficiency and Associated Bleeding in Infants
NOTE TO MEDIA: At the start of the embargo period, a sentence in the attached PDF incorrectly stated a study's launch year as 2015, not 2017. This error was corrected during the embargo period.
The corrected sentence now reads: "A related article by Wolf and colleagues using Epic Cosmos data from January 2017 through December 2025 also found a significantly increased incidence of vitamin K deficiency and vitamin K deficiency bleeding across an overlapping but more extended time period."
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