Barbara Rodriguez

Interim Health and Caregiving Reporter

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In pockets of the internet, soon-to-be-parents swap birthing plans with each other, offering a range of advice: Ask hospital staff to let you move freely during labor. Demand at least an hour of immediate skin-to-skin bonding with your newborn. Decline any offer by nurses to bathe the infant.

Some of these birthing checklists — offered in playful fonts on Facebook and Instagram, or screenshotted behind personal testimonials on TikTok — also suggest something more consequential: That parents decline the hepatitis B vaccine that’s typically administered to newborns within the first day of life.

The vaccine, given through a multi-shot series in early infancy, is safe and effect

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