Ugeskrift for laeger
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Ugeskrift for laeger · Apr 1992
Case Reports[Late hemorrhagic disease in newborn infants. Is the current preventive treatment with oral vitamin K adequate?].
During recent years, we have observed two cases of haemorrhage due to vitamin K deficiency which developed late in the neonatal period. One patient was a female infant aged six weeks with severe intracranial bleeding and the other was a female infant aged three weeks with marked haemorrhage from the umbilicus. ⋯ In other European countries, many cases of late haemorrhagic disease of the newborn due to vitamin K deficiency have been registered in infants who had received oral vitamin K prophylaxis. On the basis of these observations and investigations which suggest that oral vitamin K prophylaxis is not so effective as intramuscular administration, it is suggested that the present oral vitamin K prophylaxis should be altered.