The Health Council recommends vitamin K injections for babies. What exactly does this entail?

The Health Council advocates that babies receive a vitamin K injection immediately after birth. This is considered the best way to prevent a deficiency of this vital nutrient. If this isn't possible, the vitamin can also be administered as oral drops.

Babies currently receive 1 milligram of vitamin K in drops immediately after birth. If the baby is breastfed, parents can administer 150 micrograms of vitamin K in drops daily for the first three months. Formulated formula already contains vitamin K, so bottle-fed babies do not need these drops.

According to the Health Council, the current approach using drops is not working optimally. In the Netherlands, more babies experience bleeding due to a vitamin K deficiency than in other countries.

If parents or midwives don't want their baby to get an injection, the council says it's also possible to give newborns a higher dose of vitamin K in drops. This means they need to be administered less frequently.

In 2017, the council issued the same recommendation. An injection is more effective and offers better protection than oral administration – which requires administering drops at different intervals – because it doesn't work well in infants with impaired fat absorption. The then-State Secretary of Health adopted this recommendation in 2021. The injection was to be administered starting in 2025.

Midwives protested this and refused to administer the shot. They feared higher costs and increased workloads, and that vaccination willingness would decline. They also argued that the injection violated the "do no harm " principle, as many children were vaccinated unnecessarily.

The midwives preferred an improvement over the currently common oral administration method via drops. The Royal Dutch Organisation of Midwives (KNOV) believed that the money involved would be better spent on other care.

That's why the State Secretary asked the Health Council last year to reconsider whether vaccination is the best way to give newborns vitamin K. The council concluded that it is: "Administering vitamin K with a single intramuscular injection immediately after birth works best." The KNOV (Royal Dutch Society for the Prevention of Childbirth) has not yet responded to the recommendation.

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