More parents are refusing vitamin K shots for their newborns, a study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association found. It’s a trend that experts worry could have deadly consequences.

Babies are born with very low levels of vitamin K, a nutrient the body needs for blood to clot, leaving them at risk for severe bleeding early in life. In the early 1960s, hospitals in the United States began giving newborns shots of the vitamin within the first six hours of birth to prevent bleeding, including bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract or brain.

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Dr. Kristan Scott, a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the leader of the study, said he and his co-authors noticed a rise in pa

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