ABSTRACT
Late onset hemorrhagic disease of the newborn is life threatening. In a study by Nakayama, 81% of infants develop intracranial hemorrhage. However, such a complication may be avoided by routine administration of Vitamin K1 at birth since it has been shown to significantly lower the incidence of Neonatal bleeding. In our country, community based clinical studies to establish the efficacy of routine Vitamin K1 prophylaxis are not available. Thus, this study aims to compare the coagulation activity among purely breastfed infants at one to one and a half month of age with and without Vitamin K at birth. A total of 18 patients for each group were included in the study. Among those without vitamin K1 at birth, 11.11% (p .05) had prolonged coagulation activity compared to only 5.55% (p0.5) in those given routine prophylaxis at birth. While no statistically significant differences were found, these results may serve as preliminary data for further studies using a larger sample size from which more definite conclusions may be drawn. (Author)