Episode 9: Newborn Care, Vitamin K Injection & Erythromycin Eye Ointment

Hello and welcome to Episode 9: Newborn procedures. Make informed decisions!

Today in Episode 9 of these free weekly birth prep videos we're continuing our newborn care series and talking about the vitamin K injection and erythtomycin (eye ointment). Go to bravejourney.com for the full free video.

Vitamin K
🌵 Why vitamin K?
🌵 An injection of vitamin K soon after birth can prevent rare but deadly internal bleeds in infants up to 6 months old.
🌵 Breast milk is not a good source of vitamin K (boo!)
🌵 After 6 months the baby will start getting vitamin K from the solid foods they have started eating.
🌵 Myth: the vitamin K injection causes cancer. (It doesn't!)

Eye Ointment
🌵 Why eye ointment?
🌵 The antibiotic in the ointment prevents eye infection.
🌵Eye infections caused by gonorrhea and chlamydia (common STIs) can cause permanent blindness in the infant within 24 hours of infection.
🌵 Alternative: screen the birthing person for STIs prior to birth
🌵 Alternative: Watch the infant closely for signs of eye infection and treat immediately if signs seen.

🌵 Do your research. Talk to your medical care provider. Make informed decisions.

So much of birth is unpredictable. Learn as much as you can before your baby arrives!

Full Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to episode nine of Brave Journey, weekly free birth preparation videos. Today we're talking, or today we're continuing our newborn care procedures series. And we're talking about the vitamin K injection and erythromycin eye ointment application. So two weeks ago, we talked about skin to skin.

I went live earlier this week because there is something that I forgot to mention in my skin to skin video. There's something I meant to mention. And when I went on and on and on about all the benefits of skin to skin, of which there are many for the baby and the birthing person, I forgot to mention that sometimes right after birth in the first few moments, hours after birth, birthing people are not necessarily feeling bliss or joy or love. Sometimes they just feel relieved or numb or, um, tired. So I forgot to mention that skin to skin has positive impacts, no matter whether you're feeling love and joy and bliss and all those emotions, I described. Which were my reality for skin to skin, uh, for some people they, um, they don't feel that at all.

But the positive benefits for the infant. And the positive impacts on breastfeeding outcomes and the positive impacts on the birthing person and the infant physiologically, they happen no matter where the birthing person's head space is.

So I wish I had remembered to say that. And I didn't. So I put out a live video on social media earlier this week. You can go check it out, but I wanted to say it here, too. And I'm considering talking about it in another video, more extensively, but, um, I think it's important to embrace the complexity of the 📍 human experience and birth is a very human experience and not everybody feels blissed out right after they give birth.

So let's see, uh, two weeks ago we talked about skin to skin. Last week, we talked about cord clamping. And this week, we're talking about vitamin K and eye ointment. Next week, we're going to be talking about the golden hour and all the newborn procedures like weighing and measuring, and sometimes the bath, all those things that happen within the first, a little while after an infant is born the importance of delaying some of those to prioritize skin to skin.

So we'll talk about that next week, but today let's dive in. So, um, let's see. One of the procedures that tend to happen in the newborn exam that we're going to talk more about next week is vitamin K and eye ointment application. And I wanted to talk about these two things separately and specifically, because they're really, um, it's important to know some of the evidence and some of the benefits for these procedures.

And it's important to know more about it before you get into the birth room. Right after birth is not really a great time to be doing a lot of research on the benefits and risks. As you make one of the first medical decisions you're going to make for your infant, that also doesn't involve the birthing person.

So this decision on whether or not to have this eye ointment prophylactic prophylaxis put on the infant's eyes, or whether or not to have that vitamin K injection, those are sometimes the first choices you're making as a parent for the infant, that doesn't have anything with the birthing person's body . So this is really the stepping into this identity as parent.

Some people start feeling like a parent while they're pregnant. Some people, it takes a few hours or days or years to develop that identity as a parent. So, I mean, that's, that's a whole video topic on its own. First. We'll talk about vitamin K then we'll talk about eye ointment.

So vitamin K is given as a single injection within hours of birth in order to prevent, um, rare, but deadly brain bleeds or sometimes stomach bleeds.

So vitamin K is a vitamin that we all have in our bodies that helps our blood clot. So bleeds are very, very rare in infants, but if they're going to happen, they will happen in the brain or the stomach where they're not really noticeable until often it's too late. So it is super rare. Rare in this instance means four to seven babies per 100,000 who don't get the vitamin K injection will end up with a brain bleed.

So I'll say that again four to seven infants out of every 100,000 infants that don't receive the vitamin K shot will experience one of these fatal bleeds. So the vitamin K shot increases vitamin K in the infant's body. It increases the ability of their blood to clot .

Some risks include pain and soreness at the injection site. It is an injection in the infant.

There is a myth that the vitamin K shot causes cancer and that is just flat out not true. You can do some more research on this. It is not true. Um, also some people fear that the injection contains toxins. The main ingredient of the injection is vitamin K. And you can check with your medical care provider, if you want to know about all the other small, lesser, not main ingredients in the injection. So that's something you can talk to your care provider about if you're concerned.

In terms of alternate methods of administering vitamin K, there is an oral dose, but it requires two doses and it just doesn't seem to be as effective as the injection. And also some people wonder about if they could increase the vitamin K levels in the breastfeeding parent, if that would then transfer through the breast milk to the infant. And unfortunately there's very low levels of vitamin K in breast milk. So trying to, it just doesn't really work to try to up the intake of vitamin K and the breastfeeding parent. It's not going to translate to the, um, higher vitamin K levels in the infant in those first six months. And infants start getting vitamin K from their food when they receive the introduct with the introduction of solids. So that's when they start getting vitamin K in their diet on their own.

And that's usually around six months of age or so it was when you start introducing solids. So most medical care providers, midwives doctors, alternative medicine, natural medicine, traditional medicine, take a pretty strong stance that the benefits of vitamin K outweigh the risks. But it's your choice. Vitamin K injection is your choice as a parent.

So do you receive to make your choice and make the choice before the birth? So that you're just, um, it's already clear when it's, when it's.

So onto ointment prophylactic eye appointment, erythromycin. Erythromycin is applied topically as an ointment. It's a goo that covers the infant's eyes.

It does not burn it doesn't hurt it. It doesn't, it's not uncomfortable, but it does affect their vision for an hour or two, uh, given to infants. It's given to them in order to prevent eye infection, to prevent pink eye, but most specifically to prevent pink eye or, or eye infection Caused by gonorrhea, chlamydia, sexually transmitted infections.

And they would have gotten the gonorrhea or chlamydia bacteria in their eyes via the birthing person. If the birthing person has a sexually transmitted infection. So an infant can, if an infant contract's gonohrrea in their eye, it can cause permanent blindness within 24 hours. So it's quite serious. Um, alternatives to the eye ointment can be to screen the birthing person for STI specifically gonorrhea and chlamydia before birth.

Most people, birthing people are tested and treated if, if found positive for any sort of sexually transmitted disease during their prenatal care. So, um, If the birthing person is not having sex, or they're only having sex with one person who is also only having sex with the birthing person, the likelihood of the infant contracting an eye infection from an STI is very low, but, but people in monogamous relationships who have sex outside of that relationship are often dishonest about that.

So from a public health perspective, a routine application eye ointment makes sense. But for example, a birthing person who has not had sex throughout their pregnancy eye ointment, maybe isn't necessary.

Um, another alternative is to wait and see, to watch closely for infection and to treat it immediately if any sign of pink eye is observed.

📍 Okay. That's it on eye ointment and vitamin K. If you want to know more, you can. This is where you can start practicing researching medical decisions for your infant, for your child and coming to your own conclusions for your child's medical care.

If you have any thoughts on this, do you have any questions? Do, did I miss something that you think it was super essential for me to talk about and I just didn't do it? Please. Let me know. I love hearing from you. I think the interactions that I get to get with that I get to have with birthing people really makes me happy. So reach out to me. That's one, not so great thing about the internet as I'm putting a lot of information out there, but I want to get as much back from you as I can.

So please let me know. Questions, thoughts, things you think I missed.

So thank you so much for watching. I appreciate you so very much. Thank you.