Haemhorragic Disease of the Newborn
Haemhorragic Disease of the Newborn is characterized by bleeding tendency in the newborn. It occurs chiefly due to deficiency of vitamin K in the newborn. Chiefly premature babies, low birth weight babies or babies with an immature liver are affected. It is characterized by bleeding tendency. Generally, the baby may start passing blood in the stool. This may be streaks of blood or frank blood. The newborn may pass blood streaks secretions from the mouth or nasal discharge. Or the baby might bleed from the umbilicus. According to Dr Mubina Agboatwalla – A child specialist in Karachi The baby may or may not be jaundiced. Every newborn needs to be given one dose of vitamin K at birth. Sometimes at birth the hospital does not give vitamin K to the newborn. This also leads to bleeding /Ceratain investigation like bleeding time, clotting time, PT, APTT need to be done to exclude other causes of bleeding. Treatment is giving 3 doses of injection Vitamin K on three successive days.