Krista Dearey did not get the vitamin K injection for her previous five children when they were born. She was healthy and so were they, never having had so much as an ear infection. So when the midwife asked if she wanted the injection for her newborn, Dearey said no.

A month later, baby Judah had a seizure at home and stopped breathing.

At the hospital, Dearey, 35, of Lakeland, Fla., learned Judah had two brain hemorrhages. She said she was told: “Had you given your baby the shot, this probably would have never happened.”

Those words, she said, have replayed in her mind hundreds of times. Almost 3 years old, Judah cannot sit up, crawl or walk. He has cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus, where fluid builds up in his brain cavities.

Dearey and Stefani Leavitt, another mother whose baby suffered serious brain bleeding, are sharing their stories as part of a new effort by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to educate expectant parents and health care providers about the risks of refusing to get the routine newborn injection of vitamin K, a decision that appears to be on the rise.