VITAMIN-K STATUS BEYOND THE NEONATAL PERIOD, A PROSPECTIVE STUDY IN NORMAL BREAST-FED AND FORMULA-FED INFANTS

Abstract

Breast-feeding has been implicated as a necessary factor in the pathogenesis of haemorrhagic disease of the newborn infants but little is known about its role beyond the neonatal period. So the aim of this study was the comparison between breast feeding and formula feeding as regard the vitamin K-dependent clotting factors (II. VII, IX and X), pro- thrombin time (PT) and partial thromboplastin time (PTT) For this purpose, forty healthy Egyptian infants were included in this work 20 males and 20 females. They were classified according to the type of feeding into two groups: Group I (breast-fed) infants which comprised 20 infants and Group II (formula-fed) infants which com- prised also 20 infants.