The recent measles outbreak in California has doctors urging parents to vaccinate their children against the disease, as both the number of cases and number of states reporting cases continue to grow, according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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A recent study from the University of Calgary has found that increasing numbers of parents are refusing to consent to their newborns receiving a shot of vitamin K at birth, due to fears about possible reactions to the high single dose of the vitamin, as well as the other ingredients that come with it.
Vitamin K is necessary for normal blood-clotting in both adults and children; however, babies are usually born with insufficient amounts of the vitamin in their system, as it doesn’t cross very well from the mother’s blood through the placenta. The mother’s diet does not affect the levels of vitamin K that her baby is born with to any large degree.
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Current medical practice in the United States is to give babies their first measles shot between 12 and 15 months, while in Canada, that measles shot is given at 12 months. But a new study out of Quebec shows that waiting until 15 months offers children better immunity against the measles later on.
In a recent large measles outbreak in Quebec, students who had gotten their first measles shot at 12 months were found to be about six times more likely to come down with the measles than those who had gotten their first vaccination later.
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