As for the healthy newborn which doesn't need it - what constitutes a traumatic birth?

My DD was born after a less-than-4-hour "true" labour (14 hours since my waters broke), at home, to an undrugged mother. I didn't even push until her ears were already born! Yet she was so shocked, after hours on my perineum, to be suddenly in the world, that her APGAR, which was 9 at birth, went to 7 at 5 minutes and she needed oxygen. Luckily the oxygen (given to her while she rested skin-to-skin on my belly) perked her up, and her Apgar at ten minutes was 10. Nevertheless she STILL has lots (a patch 10cm by 6cm) of stork marks on the back of her head from sitting under my pubic arch for so long, and was obviously shocked at delivery. The midwives told me in hospital she'd have been in SCBU overnight "just to be safe".

So did she need Vit K or not? In terms of circumstance it was probably the least traumatic birth i could have offered her, and yet she wasn't so hot after it. The studies which reveal the (miniscule) childhood leukemia link once again take NO other factors into consideration, such as diet, lifestyle, local pollution, etc. etc. Until controlled studies can be carried out which take these factors into account (and i don't see how they can) the findings will be, at best, unreliable (not wrong, unreliable). I opted to give DD Vit K for the same reason i took the sintocin injection to speed the 3rd stage (after waiting 10 minutes to see if it'd come on it's own) - i did not believe it could harm me, and thus any good it could do was a bonus. I was more concerned with my slightly-blue baby, and would rather the midwives gave me the sintocin, and concentrated on watching how DD was doing than worried about me when a simple injection could alleviate their concerns.

I don't think Vit K should be forced on people, any more than the sintocin for 3rd stage, or any other of the interventions which exist as options, but equally if people don't choose them it shouldn't be because they're frightened of them. Saying there is hydrochloric acid in something is obviously aimed at scaring, but it means little when so many IV suspensions use it to make the drugs more comfortable to recieve (as i understand it the body is a fairly acidic place, injecting alkaline solutions messes with the pH balance and hurts!). I agree that people should be aware of the full picture but "it's made of cow bile" and "it also contains hydrochloric acid" isn't the full picture at all!

Bec