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Newborn babies are internally bleeding to death — a troubling parenting trend is to blame

Nypost · · 495 words · By Rachel Sacks
Parental Decision Making Medical Misinformation Public Health
open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/05/06/health/babies-bleeding-to-death-from-preventable-c…

psychologyDetected Techniques

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Loaded Language 90% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
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Appeal to Fear 85% confidence
Building support by instilling anxiety or panic in the audience.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

10 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

check_circle Corroborated 3
info Single Source 2
verified Verified 2
help Insufficient Evidence 2
verified Verified By Reference 1
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“a 7-week-old boy from Maryland experienced sudden seizures, a Kentucky newborn threw up before becoming lethargic and a girl in Alabama stopped breathing for several seconds at a time before they died, as reported this week by ProPublica”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence confirms that ProPublica reported on newborns dying from vitamin K deficiency, but the specific details regarding the 7-week-old in Maryland, the newborn in Kentucky, and the girl in Alabama are not independently corroborated by the other provided search results; they appear to be specific case details from the ProPublica report itself.
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web search NEUTRAL — Autopsy reports reviewed by ProPublica, like these two from children in Minnesota and Arizona, have notes from coroners citing vitamin K deficiency as a cause of death. Obtained and redacted for priva…
https://www.propublica.org/article/more-parents-decline-vita…
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web search NEUTRAL — Live news, investigations, opinion, photos and video by the journalists of The New York Times from more than 150 countries around the world. Subscribe for coverage of U.S. and international news, poli…
https://www.nytimes.com/
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web search NEUTRAL — US doctors are warning that newborns who miss the routine Vitamin K shot are developing dangerous internal bleeding. The cases have renewed attention on how a single injection can prevent potentially …
https://www.indiatoday.in/health/story/babies-are-bleeding-t…
verified
“The babies developed vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB), a rare but potentially fatal condition that can be averted with a single vitamin K shot.”
VERIFIED
Multiple sources, including medical information from the Cleveland Clinic and reports citing the AAP, confirm that VKDB is a rare but potentially fatal condition preventable by a vitamin K injection.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Vitamins are organic molecules (or a set of closely related molecules called vitamers) that are essential to an organism in small quantities for proper metabolic function. These essential nutrients ca…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is an essential nutrient. The term "vitamin A" encompasses a group of chemically related organic compounds that includes retinol, retinyl esters, and several pr…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Vitamin C or ascorbate is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits, berries and vegetables. It is found as a form of ascorbic acid. It is an essential nutrient involved in the repair o…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“Babies lack vitamin K at birth, as it’s not readily passed from mother to fetus through the placenta or breast milk, which only contains small amounts.”
CORROBORATED
Both the Cleveland Clinic and a 'Frequently Asked Questions' source confirm that newborns have low levels of vitamin K because it is not readily passed through the placenta and breast milk contains only small amounts.
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web search NEUTRAL — Additionally, breast milk contains only small amounts of vitamin K. That means that ALL newborns have low levels of vitamin K, so they need vitamin K from another source.
https://www.cdc.gov/vitamin-k-deficiency/faq/index.html
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web search NEUTRAL — Vitamin K is a typical part of breast milk. Breastfeeding women should continue to get the daily recommended adequate intake of vitamin K unless otherwise directed by a healthcare provider.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK614537/
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web search NEUTRAL — Newborns' digestive systems don't make their own supply of vitamin K because their gut flora isn't yet established. Breast milk and baby formula contain only small amounts of vitamin K.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/vitamin-k-newborn
info
“babies don’t start getting more of the vitamin until they begin eating purees with leafy greens like spinach around 6 months.”
SINGLE SOURCE
While UNICEF and Harvard Health discuss introducing solids at 6 months, the provided evidence does not specifically confirm the claim that babies 'don't start getting more' vitamin K until they eat leafy greens at 6 months.
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web search NEUTRAL — At 6 months of age, breastmilk continues to be a vital source of nutrition; but it’s not enough by itself. You need to now introduce your baby to solid food, in addition to breastmilk, to keep up with…
https://www.unicef.org/parenting/food-nutrition/feeding-your…
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web search NEUTRAL — How to ensure you get the right vitamins and minerals in the right amounts. Selection of food rich in antioxidants and vitamins and mineral sources, vegan food on white wooden background. Vitamins and…
https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthy-aging-and-longevity/t…
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web search NEUTRAL — Vitamin D helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients are needed to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-…
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“The vitamin K shot has been recommended to all newborns shortly after birth since 1961, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.”
CORROBORATED
Three independent web search results explicitly state that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended the vitamin K shot for all newborns since 1961.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is the largest professional association of pediatricians in the United States. It is headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, and maintains an office in Washington,…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Academy_of_Pediatrics
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Pediatrics (American English), also spelled paediatrics (British English) and also known as underage medicine, is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescent…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pediatrics
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Pediatrics is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In the inaugural January 1948 issue, the journal's first editor-in-chief, Hugh McCulloch, articul…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pediatrics_(journal)
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“between 2017 and 2024, National Institutes of Health researchers discovered that almost 200,000 newborns did not receive a vitamin K injection at birth.”
CORROBORATED
Web search results confirm that researchers found a significant number of newborns (over 5% in some years) did not receive the shot, and one source specifically mentions the increase from 2.92% to 5.18% between 2017 and 2024, implying the total count of nearly 200,000.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Amblyomma americanum, also known as the lone star tick, northeastern water tick, turkey tick, and cricker tick, is a type of tick indigenous to much of the eastern United States and Mexico that bites …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyomma_americanum
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In the United States, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are the primary government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research. They award NIH grants through 24 grant-awarding i…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIH_grant
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States federal government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the U…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health
+ 3 more evidence sources
verified
“That’s a 77% increase, going from from 2.92% in 2017 to 5.18% in 2024.”
VERIFIED
A specific research-based web result explicitly confirms the increase from 2.92% in 2017 to 5.18% in 2024.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — 2017 (MMXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2017th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 17th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21s…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Mummy is a 2017 American action-adventure horror film co-produced and directed by Alex Kurtzman from a screenplay written by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman based on a story …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mummy_(2017_film)
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Snowman is a 2017 psychological thriller film directed by Tomas Alfredson and written by Peter Straughan, Hossein Amini, and Søren Sveistrup. The story is based on the 2007 novel of the same name …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowman_(2017_film)
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“Parents are also advised to make sure their babies receive antibiotic eye drops and the hepatitis B vaccine (which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer recommends for all newborns) before leaving the hospital”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
The provided evidence for the CDC does not mention any change in the recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. The search results are general descriptions of the CDC.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer company that in the 1960s was one of the nine major U.S. computer companies, which group included IBM, Burroughs Corporation, Digital E…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — On December 31, 2019, China announced the discovery of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. The first American case of COVID-19 was reported on January 20, and Health and Human Services Secretary Al…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Unite…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services (…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“Those who don’t get the shot are 81 times more likely to develop VKDB in their first six months.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was provided in the search results to support or refute the specific '81 times more likely' statistic.
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“The condition can result in symptoms like significant hemorrhaging of the brain and gut, unexplained bruising, seizures, vomiting blood, blood in stool, brain damage and even death.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE
No evidence was provided in the search results specifically listing these symptoms for VKDB, although other sources mention 'potentially fatal strokes' and 'internal bleeding'.
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.