It was a good thing, Burch said, because now a parent questions the injection at least once a week. She often gets asked to talk to parents about what ingredients are in the shot. “They are there for good reason, and they are nontoxic,” she said.

The hospital pharmacy also developed a three-time oral dose regimen, which costs $60, to have on hand. Burch said the oral dose contains double the amount of the vitamin to improve absorption. “It’s better than nothing, but we don’t know how much better,” she said. Over the past year, six parents have ordered the oral dose at Mercy.

At the Birth and Wellness Center, parents order the oral dose from an Internet site, Henman said. Since the dose is considered a supplement, it is not regulated by the FDA.

While St. Louis-area hospital officials say they have not seen any babies suffering from vitamin K deficiency bleeding, Ross fears it’s just a matter of time as physicians in the emergency room and intensive care units learn that parents are refusing what has long been a routine injection.

“Maybe no one even thought about, yeah, he fell, but the reason he bled to death is because he didn’t have enough vitamin K,” Ross said. “It’s not that it’s not happening. It’s that it’s not being considered.”