Giving vitamin K at birth

BMJ 1996;313:1147 (2 November)

Letters

Giving vitamin K at birth

Approach to giving vitamin K should be reconsidered

EDITOR,--Alvin Zipursky concludes that intramuscular administrationof vitamin K at birth is not associated with an increased riskof childhood cancer.¹ The recommendation by the British PaediatricAssociation in 1992 that vitamin K should be given orally ratherthan intramuscularly was never successfully implemented,² withthe result that most maternity units continued to offer an intramuscularinjection. The unease about the possible risk that this conferredwas resolved by decisions to request informed parental consent.The way in which consent is requested, however, is often unsatisfactory.Parents have to make a difficult choice between two unlikelybut disastrous outcomes, and if consent is requested in thelabour ward (sometimes between delivery of the baby and theplacenta) uptake is often poor.