one big number

143%

That’s how much higher the risk of brain bleeding during the first six months of life was in infants who didn’t receive a vitamin K shot, compared to those who did. Babies are born with low levels of vitamin K, which plays an essential role in forming blood clots. That’s why the American Academy of Pediatrics has for more than 60 years recommended that newborns get the one-time shot shortly after birth. But medical mistrust has led a growing number of parents to turn down the injection; the share of newborns who weren’t given vitamin K rose from 3.1% in 2017 to 6.8% in 2025.

That trend has had grim consequences, according to a study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked back on data from more than 5 million infants born between 2017 and 2025 and found that, compared to infants given vitamin K, those who weren’t given K had a 47% higher risk of bleeding during their first six months and a 169% higher risk of dying while bleeding shortly after birth.

health

What is Kratom?

Camille MacMillan/STAT

In recent years, the Kratom plant and related synthetic products have become omnipresent across smoke shops and gas station shelves, buoyed by proponents who extol these products’ pain-relieving powers. But public health experts have raised serious concerns about the potential dangers of kratom — and the fact that these products are not closely regulated.

It’s a debate that is confusing to many; two-thirds of Americans have never even heard of kratom. STAT’s Theresa Gaffney has you covered with this timely explainer on the drug. The piece covers how a plant that has been chewed and brewed for centuries in Southeast Asia due to its stimulant-like effects has quickly risen in popularity in the U.S., where some users say kratom has eased chronic pain and helped them get off opioids.

Theresa also digs into 7-OH and MGPI, semi-synthetic related products that some experts worry are especially addictive. Clinicians who run addiction treatment centers say that they’ve seen a rise in patients seeking help to get off 7-OH in particular. But for now, data on overdoses and deaths are murky.

first opinion

Medical records often don’t tell the full truth about a woman’s health

You might think that your medical records are an objective account of your health. But they’re not, write epidemiologist Annemarie Hirsch and sociologist Jennifer Silva. The pair recently published a study in which they paired electronic medical records and interviews with 87 women about pain, illness, and encounters with the health care system.

Many of the women described trust-breaking encounters with health care providers and misdiagnoses, but these moments were rarely documented. The authors point to the story of a woman who lived with debilitating pelvic pain for more than a decade as a poignant example. Doctors at first dismissed her pain as related to obesity, pivoting to mental health after she lost weight. Notably, the turning point only came after her husband joined her for an appointment, and she was ultimately diagnosed with endometriosis. Her medical records chronicle this diagnostic odyssey, but they don’t capture the frustration and disillusionment she experienced after years of having her pain downplayed. Hirsch and Silva write that such stories raise concerns about the use of AI to advance women’s health.

“These tools are only as good as the data in the medical record,” they write. “If a woman’s symptoms are filtered through assumptions about her weight or mental health, and the true story of her pain is omitted, AI may learn and reproduce how the woman is framed in the record.”