Footnotes

• Twitter @drpaulclarke, @DocNila, @vimalvasu

• Contributors PC wrote the first and last manuscript draft. All authors contributed to manuscript revisions and approved the final version.

• Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

• Competing interests AP and NM are the parents of a preterm baby who died due to vitamin K deficiency bleeding after missed prophylaxis at birth. MS has previously acted as an expert witness to the Court in medico-legal cases involving vitamin K deficiency bleeding. PC, DJH and MS have provided intellectual input to AP who is developing a PIVKA-II test which may have diagnostic utility for diagnosis and prevention of vitamin K deficiency. NE and MF previously served on the ESPGHAN Committee on Nutrition and were coauthors of the 2016 ESPGHAN Position Paper ‘Prevention of Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding in Newborn Infants’. There are no other relevant competing interests or conflicts of interest to declare in relation to this work.

• Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.