Vitamin K Injection Newborn Location

The most reliable way to give babies vitamin k is by one injection into the muscle in the leg intramuscular injection.

Vitamin k injection newborn location. Vitamin k injections remain the best preventive measure for reducing the risk of haemorrhagic disease of the newborn. The canadian paediatric society and the college of family physicians of canada recommend routine im administration of a single dose of vitamin k at 0 5 mg to 1 0 mg to all newborns. Vitamin k injections have been routinely given in australia for over 20 years with no ill effects at the time of the injection or later. Vitamin k should be admi.

Nursing and medical staff must be familiar. Vitamin k dependent factors are lower in neonates than in adults and these anomalies are more prevalent in preterm neonates and in breast fed infants. The anterolateral thigh is the preferred site for im injection in infants under 12 months of age. Third a newborn might have low levels of vitamin k because its intestines are not yet colonized with bacteria needed to synthesize it and the vitamin k cycle isn t fully functional in newborns.

It s also more effective for preventing hdn. Darlow b harding j. Nz med j 1995. Some babies have a slight soreness for a day or so at the injection site.

Intramuscular im injections in neonates may be required to administer medications or vaccines. Health care providers should clarify with parents that newborns are at increased risk of vkdb if such a regimen is chosen. Medications are injected into the bulkiest part of the vastus lateralis thigh muscle which is the junction of the upper and middle thirds of this muscle. Vitamin k prophylaxis in the newborn.

Except baby s kidneys aren t fully functional either. Administering po vitamin k 2 0 mg at birth repeated at 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 weeks of age should be confined to newborns whose parents decline im vitamin k. At least one manufacturer of vitamin k still recommends slow injection to minimize adverse reactions international medical systems limited 2009. In contrast only 72 of infants born in local freestanding birth centers received vitamin k warren miller et al.

One injection just after birth will protect your baby for many months. It makes sense then to bypass the gut and inject vitamin k right into the muscle right. It is possible to give babies vitamin k by mouth orally. Brit j haematol 1999.

Combining interventions to control pain there is good evidence from randomized controlled trials that breastfeeding and sucking on sucrose solution during injections are effective methods to reduce injection pain in newborns taddio et al 2010. Vitamin k deficiency can account for vitamin k deficiency bleeding vkdb which occurs in 3 forms early classic and late. The main advantage of a vitamin k injection given through the intramuscular route in the thigh is that your baby will only need one dose puckett and offringa 2000.