legal advice required urgently re parental responsibility

[OohIsThatAFlake]

I realise this isn't exactly AIBU but I would really appreciate some advice.

I'll also post in Legal if anyone thinks that would be better.

A friend of a friend of mine had a baby recently. He has some allergies (as do his parents and siblings) and severe eczema and was exclusively breastfed. Now, I'm not sure of the details exactly but he has struggled to put on, and keep on weight and now at 6 months old weighs 11lb, but is otherwise bright and alert, holding head up etc.

His mother has had concerns over the medical treatment her baby has received as the hospital have pushed formula feeding, fruit juices via bottle and jars of processed baby food onto him and also antihistamine drugs for his allergies and strong chemical creams for his eczema when she would have preferred to continue with home-made purees as first weaning foods, breastfeeding and a chemical free homeopathic cream remedy which she had used with good effect to calm his skin.

The hospital have viewed her stance on her baby's care as obstructive.

The baby's parents have had parental responsibility taken away from them, meaning that they cannot even change his nappy. His mother has had to stop breastfeeding him and is sleeping in a bedroom in the hospital while her baby sleeps in a pushchair in the corridor by the nurses' station so that his mother cannot comfort him when he cries at night.

The hospital want to have a meeting with SW and consultants etc on Friday with a view to removing the child from his parents' care. They have been advised to get some legal representation. Naturally, they are petrified and are going along with all the hospital's requests and feeding regimes etc.

Can anyone help?

Many many thanks in advance to anyone who has read this far and can help!

Lesley - what an interesting post. Lots to think about there. As I said in my OP it's a friend of a friend so I really only have the facts second hand.

CAB are a no go as they're closed. I'm trying to get hold of a family lawyer now.

Thanks bluepaws for your helpful input! I'm just trying to help someone out.

There was a case in the news recently where a couple (in France) insisted on using only using homeopathic remedies and prayer to cure their child, which then died of pneumonia, iirc. The media blamed the child's ill health on the parents' veganism

There is always another side to a story, and I expect there's a group of social workers somewhere in a staff room, saying "OMG, this poor baby is in so much pain from the eczema, and the parents won't let us put cream on - the poor wee mite is scratching him/herself until he bleeds!"

have you met these people you are trying to help out?

if you go in half cocked with wrong facts, you will make yourself look very very daft

I would strongly advise you to distance yourself from this situation - just urge them to take legal advice and leave it at that.

If you are in one of jurisdictions with similar broad legal structure to the UK then I do not think there is any way you have anything approaching the full story. Firstly, I do not think it is likely that they have lost PR. Secondly, I do not for one minute believe that a baby unwell enough to be in hospital is sleeping in a buggy. What, the hospital don't have cots? Thirdly, I think it unlikely that a hospital is deliberately trying to force things into a baby that are recognised as being sub-optimum. I would imagine there are serious failure to thrive concerns and that the "juice in a bottle" is more likely to be some particular drink/medical concoction.

This is ringing massive alarm bells for me and I think you might find yourself being drawn into a potentially upsetting and hurtful situation.

I am not (these days) of the view that social services always get it right - I have posted recently about some friends of mine who have been through hell due to an unfounded investigation - but this situation really sounds very implausible.

Just read your recent post - if these people are just friends of friends then you really, really need to think about staying out of this. I could understand you wanting to help one of your own friends but there is really no need for you to get drawn into such a worrying situation. Presumably you have no way of knowing if this "friend of a friend" is trustworthy or what her background is.

You also run the risk of looking like you are just trying to get involved out of curiosity.

Let them find a lawyer - I would be surprised if this hasn't occurred to them already.

My goodness. Based on my own run-ins with child protection and the advice I've received, I'd suggest the parents do three things

1. Find out as much as they can about the specifics of what they are being accused of, when and by whom and why. And do so trying to establish the facts rather than the opinions surrounding the situation.

1. If there is a family history of allergies or FTT, to look into the genetics of this. (When our HV started getting uptight about DC1's weight gain, I found it very helpful to be able to demonstrate him to have been born into a family of very small yet healthy children.)

1. Get some legal advice. MN can never be a substitute for a real life solicitor.

@purple. I remember that case, and if I remember rightly the link to the veganism wasn't completely non-existent : the child's pneumonia was provoked by severe malnutrition, probably due to being exclusively breast fed at a very late age (almost a year I think). The mother was a vegan and I believe the child had certain specific vitamin deficiencies which are typical of not-sufficiently-balanced vegan diets, which compounded the malnutrition.

So not the main cause, but possibly a contributing factor. (NB : I'm not saying that vegans can't breastfeed, or that veganism isn't a reasonable diet just that there are certain issues you have to be careful of).

Kirsty that's the point I was 0trying to make! So many different takes on one single situation.

How strange. A friend of a friend - so clearly not your friend else you'd have said. You don't know this person and you don't know the full facts. You're trying to find a lawyer? Why?

I smell a rat and it's not the contents of Baldrick's bakewell tart!