Are birth shots safe for newborns?

This tweet tries to link aluminum and alcohol they claim are in the Vitamin K shot to jaundice and neurological damage. However, the Vitamin K shot doesn’t contain aluminum in anything other than trace amounts, much like everything else on this planet – including drinking water. It is not added as an ingredient as it is with some vaccines (as an adjuvant), and would only be present because aluminum is present in the environment (ingredient list here).

It’s important to note that these reactions to Vitamin K shots are far, far more common when Vitamin K is given by IV in very large doses. Vitamin K is not administered in newborns this way. A birth dose of Vitamin K has only ever been noted in one life-threatening case in a newborn in Turkey.

Why do we give the Vitamin K shot at birth? Babies are born with very low levels of Vitamin K, putting them at risk for hemorrhagic disease (uncontrolled bleeding). The Vitamin K shot has reduced the number of severe bleeding cases in babies.

The tweet also tries to link the Hepatitis B vaccine to neurological damage. The birth dose of Hepatitis B prevents the worst possible complications of the disease, including cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. If a newborn catches Hep B, they have a 90% chance of the disease becoming chronic, which is a major risk factor for liver cancer.

Babies born to mothers who are Hepatitis B positive are at the highest risk for developing the disease, but a third of the people who develop Hep B were at no risk of developing the disease.

The vaccine is very safe, and the benefits of the birth dose far outweigh any risk.