Sanna-Mari asked about this, so I will answer, though it only peripherally
relates to BF.  Official Norwegian government health policy is to offer
Vitamin K as an intramuscular injection to all term newborns within two
hours of birth.  If parents have no stated preference, health personnel are
supposed to give it, and if parents say they don't want it given, they are
asked to sign a form releasing the hospital from responsibility if the baby
gets hemorrhagic disease of the newborn.  The birth attendant (or the
hospital) is also supposed to offer parents the choice of an oral
preparation but the dosage schedules for this route are largely unknown and
it has been hard to obtain the preparation at times.
Pediatricians are sceptical to the oral route, if for no other reason than
that parents often get lax about giving it weekly, long before the three
months it needs to be given to have the same effectiveness as the IM route.

It is assumed that parents have been informed of the policy and the reasons
for it, beforehand, but there exist no written materials about Vitamin K
whatsoever for expectant parents and most of them find out what it is when
they ask what that injection we just gave the baby, was.  This is what
passes for informed consent where I work, and as you can see we don't
exactly have an excess of medical malpractice lawyers hanging around looking
for amusement.

Now, for the on-topic part:
We don't ask about whether the baby will be breastfed in connection with
Vitamin K (or at all, see earlier posts on this).  It is assumed the baby
will be breastfed unless the mother tells us otherwise, and all babies are
offered Vitamin K regardless of how they are nourished.  If there are other
concerns, such as prematurity, acidemia at birth, or traumatic instrumental
delivery, the Vitamin K will be given immediately.  Otherwise we fit it in
sometime in the first couple of hours.

In some countries, artificially fed babies are not given Vitamin K
prophylaxis while BF babies are.  I think the evidence for the defensibility
of such a practice, both w.r.t. who gets Vit.K and who doesn't, leaves much
to be desired.  We know too little about the Vitamin K levels in blood of
babies who have nursed physiologically since birth.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
who in fact does practice informed choice for parents about Vitamin K
prophylaxis

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