When I started reading this article about the increasing number of parents who don’t want to give their newborns a vitamin K shot (this greatly reduces the chance of hemorrhaging from vitamin K deficiency bleeding), I said to myself, “Damn, Katie Couric is a busy person“ “Where the hell is coming from?”
Yet, a general Internet search about vitamin K and newborns can befuddle parents.
Where have I read something like that before? Let’s continue (boldface mine):
The first thing that comes up searching with Google is “The Dark Side of the Routine Newborn Vitamin K Shot” written by Dr. Joseph Mercola, a popular alternative medicine proponent. His website, which also markets his dietary supplements, is one of the most trafficked health information sites, boasting 2 million unique visitors a month.
The article calls the injection a “shotgun approach” that lacked consideration of side effects. Mercola wrote that pain from the injection likely causes “psycho-emotional damage” and the solution contains preservatives “that can be toxic” for a baby.
Toxic preservatives. This is the exact same anti-vaccine shit Mercola peddles, only repurposed for vitamin K. That Mercola sells vitamin K pills (which he advocates as a replacement) I’m sure is just a coincidence.
Hopefully, no kids will die from this idiocy.
mikethemadbiologist
Of for crying out loud.
The baby has just been squeezed through a tunnel in a process likened to moving a watermelon through a garden hose. I seriously doubt that the trauma of an injection will qualify as a cause of psycho-emotional damage.
Perhaps Dr Mercola could offer for sale a synthetic sense of proportion.
I guess you have forgotten your birth trauma, eh?
😉
No, it was hellish!
A nice injection of vitamin K would have been just the shot in the arm to pick me up and restore my legendary good cheer.