Vitamin K Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Vitamin K - Essay Example Later, after several weeks, Dam found severe bleeding among the chickens, thus discovered the need for the coagulation vitamin. At present, vitamin K is introduced to newly born babies hours upon birth in order to prevent bleeding in the brain. Babies are said to have very low levels of vitamin K in their body after they are born (Croucher & Azzopardi, 1994). Breastfed infants are more prone to the deficiency because infant formulas have high levels of vitamin K compared to breast milk. Croucher and Azzopardi (1994) mention that due to low levels of coagulation vitamin in their body, late haemorrhagic diseases have been discovered in breast fed infants who received a single oral dose of vitamin K. As such, repeated dosage is recommended for breastfed babies as a standard practice in many countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. Golding, Greenwood, Birmingham and Mott (1992) report a decreased risk of cancer among infants whose mothers were given vitamin K during labor. However, there is a tendency for the presence of intramuscular vitamin K compared with babies who were given oral vitamin K and those who did not receive vitamin K at all.