An 11-Day-Old Baby Couldn’t Stop Bleeding. For Hours, the ER Didn’t Provide a Critical Vitamin Shot.

An 11-day-old baby, Gwen Biesenbach, was taken to a Texas emergency room after her umbilical cord stump began bleeding. The bleeding continued despite repeated treatments, and the case highlights the danger of vitamin K deficiency bleeding in newborns whose parents decline the standard injection.

Gwen’s parents had declined the shot at birth and were giving her oral vitamin K drops. Over nearly three hours, Dr Nicole Malouf tried seven methods to stop the bleeding, including gauze and silver nitrate, before arranging a transfer to a hospital with paediatric specialists. The article says recent studies found higher bleeding risks among babies who did not receive the shot; one reported a 347% rise in vitamin K deficiency bleeding between 2017 and 2025.