Vegans In France to be charged with child neglect (warning, may upset some)

[gemmummy]

I read this article and thought it was very sad. As a mum who breastfed I was concious that what I ate was what my baby ate. And I got to wondering, how do vegatarian, vegan or mums on a restricted diet cope in the UK? I'm not on a restricted diet, but is there enough info out there for mums that are? Just wondered about other peoples experiences. Here is the article for those that haven't seen it. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371172/French-vegan-couple-face-jail-child-neglect-baby-died-vitamin-deficiency.html

Although I think the advice is to give a breastfed baby vitamins after six months, even if you are weaning them then, as they may suffer iron deficiency, etc.? At least it was four years ago when we were at that stage.

agree with others. i was on a forced vegan diet when ds2 was born (am veggie, he reacted to dairy/egg in my diet)

i did need to alter my diet a bit, but i was fine and he is fine, as is ds3 who conceived, born ad breastfed by me still on a vegan diet

there are pics on my profile of them... you can see they are chubby and healthy ad full of beans lol

But really, vegan thing aside, you're not supposed to just breastfeed beyond six months (or earlier). Are you?

some babies are not ready for solids at that age

6 months is relatively new tbh. it isn't all that long ago that babies were weaned at 9 months. and in France you used to have to have a medical certificate from a doctor if you wanted to wean before a year!!

breastmilk is a complete food, and should be the main source of nutrition for well past 6 months. so although it's unusual that a baby would not be on any solids it isn't etirely unheard of

But isn't the advice to wean from six months (or before now)? And to supplement with vitamins if you are breastfeeding after six months?

uhh, yeh but it isn't the law afaik. and some babies are totally uninterested in it and as such just don't really eat any solids for quite a while

But isn't that the point - everyone reject medical advice because we think we know better. What the couple in France did is an extreme example.

I don't think the exclusive breastfeeding is an issue at all. The problem was the mother's inappropriate diet which meant she (the mother) was deficient therefore the baby was lacking in required vitamins. Babies are normally completely fine if exclusively breastfed until they are 1. The only doubt is with Vitamin D.

They WERE quite a bit misguided as the child did die. I can sometimes be considered quite alternative but one must not take chances with someone else's life. They must have doubted themselves sometime before she died and they could have done something about it. She was less than 1 (although children can crash very quickly so maybe it all happened too quickly)

bloody hell

my ILs read the daily mail and I'm sure we'll have even more issues with them now Lets see if they mention the non dairy yet again.

It's a odd situation. It wasn't explained why the child hadn't started weaning and yet there are countless examples of some children who don't wean until that age. It's not the normal stories of vegan children who die who are fed completely inappropriate food stuffs (no BM but also not FM). It doesn't sound like they were being that reckless.

However I would have thought that every vegan is aware of the B12 issue (a lot of vegan products such as soy milk and vegan marg are fortified with it for this very reason). Most meat eaters get their B12 and other vitamins from cereal etc, not meat. Also when you make the decision to have a vegan pg or raise a child vegan then most people do even more research into the issue.

Either way it is very :(

Although I am not aware of the legal situation in France in the UK a parents beliefs however strongly held about medical treatment for their child are not sufficient to prevent treatment of a child where their life is at risk. It seems a similar convergence of circumstances that have led to the death of too many children in the UK. Concerns are identified about a child but not communicated to other relevant parties or followed up. You do wonder if a more assertive approach had been taken with the parents about treatment for their baby early on if it would ever have come to this. I agree with many others that the issue is not really about veganism or the breastfeeding (althogh the idea of exclusive breastfeeding at that age makes me feel a little uncomfortable) but about the mechanisms for offering support and monitoring for vulnerable families.

Breast milk is only as good as the food you eat yourself. The baby was probably starved of nutrition in the womb too. (Anyone interested check out Dr Joe Hibbeln's work on Diet and the Unborn Child). I'd take a lot of convincing that a vegan diet is healthy for a baby or a young child. This is ABSOLUTELY a case of child neglect; fanaticism overiding common sense. If your baby is hungry (which this baby must have been) they need to be feed by whatever means available. Sometimes, breast is not enough.

altho I'm not vegan I did my herb degree thru a vegan uni (really!) and learnt a lot about vegan nutrition. My experience is that most vegans are more aware of nutrition and how to get a balanced diet, and often do better nutritionally than us omnis!

My nephew was hospitalised when he was nine months old because he had a vitamin B12 deficiency. His mother had been a vegan for decades. He was still exclusively breastfed because he could not swallow food; he'd vomit it out. It is a symptom of vitamin B12 deficiency. He was very poorly. If caught later he could have sustained irreparable neurological damage.

I'd agree with mamaherbal. I feel most omni's think theire meat diet is what gives them everything they need, but realising how much is fortified. Their good nutrition is just a fluke.

Sazza you can keep your to yourself if you don't mind

I know a vegan couple whose child contracted a chest infection that turned into pneumonia as they refused antibiotics. The GP threatened to call in Social Services unless they agreed for him to go into hospital as this was what he needed by then. They caved in at this point.

It took reading it a few times to realise the real issue was that the child had bronchitis which they weren't treating for and the child had lost weight.

vegan, EBF vitamin def. all divert attention away from this fact

I have to agree that the issue here, and where the neglect did actually occur, was that medical advice at the nine-month check was ignored by these parents. The baby was identified with having bronchitis and losing weight and they were advised to get this treated. They chose not to, believing that they knew better having read a few books and discovered that cabbage poultices exist. I thoroughly support a parents' right to make decisions about how to rear their children, and fully believe that a well informed decision to raise a baby on a vegan diet can be a healthy option, veganism and bf'ing wasn't the issue here. However, it is a parents responsibility to recognise medical problems, follow medical advice and ensure that their child is treated as and when necessary. That's what makes me sad about this story - they put their child at risk by ignoring clear medical advice and there must have been so many signs that this child was still very poorly before it got to the decision to call an ambulance.

Very sad story. It sounds as if the parents were trying hard to nurture their child in what they misguidedly believed to be the best possible manner.

Exclusive breastfeeding is natural at a year old, albeit unusual in our society. That in itself should not have caused a problem for a healthy, well nourished mother and child.

The need to ensure enough Vit B12 in the diet is well known amongst vegetarians and vegans - B12 deficiency can be very serious for an adult, let alone a nursing mother and baby. Maybe this sorry story will alert other well meaning parents adopting strict diets, that extra care is needed.

Whatever our views on meat/factoryfarming etc etc we simply have to recognise the fact of nature : human beings are omnivores and it is entirely natural for people to eat meat.
(I'm vegetarian btw)

www.bupa.co.uk/health-information/directory/v/anaemia-b12

This story gave me a fright - my youngest is almost two and is still almost exclusively breast fed. We offer him food, he ates a bite or two, but just doesn't want to take his main nourishment from anything but the breast... I misunderstood and assumed they were a similar situation, not that they starved the little girl :-(

I am not a vegan though, and my toddler is 75th percentile so not small, also very healthy. He just doesn't want to wean or eat much, but is willing to try anything - he just doesn't seem to think of it as food, more like a tasty snack between meals :-(

Sorry to go off topic. I just instantly thought when I saw the headline 'eek, am I going to be in big trouble for still breast feeding DS?'

This child dies because she had bronchitis which her parents refused conventional treatment for,a nd which they attemped to cure with cabbage leaves and clay poultices.

The breastfeeding and veganism are both completley irrelevant.

No, the veganism is not completely irrelevant. If the mother has been vegan for a long time and does not take vitamin B12 supplements, she does not not have any/sufficient stores to pass on to the foetus & breastfed baby. The disastrous effects of vitamin B12 deficiency on infants are well documented. Just have a look on pubmed. Given that veganism is so rare in France it might just be that the need to take vitamin B12 supplements are not sufficiently advertised/know about by health care professionals (& vegans). This was certainly the case with my sister-in-law in Switzerland.

It wasn't that she was a vegan - it was that she had a crap diet. The two things are by no means the same.

Schmee,
Just to clarify - it's actually the other way round to the statement in your post. The advice is not to wean BY six months, but to avoid weaning BEFORE six months - the aim should be for 6 months of breastfeeding, then a diet that might still include breastmilk but which would also include some solids and possibly formula milk (moving on to cows' milk at 1 year). So it's not in any way damaging - quite the opposite, research says - to breastfeed past six months. Lots of babies spend their first months on solids eating very little actual solid food, too.

Agree with many of the comments already here - this story is being unfairly linked with both breastfeeding and veganism, when actually there was clearly a broader background of some pretty odd ideas that created conditions of neglect. Poor baby. Shame nothing stronger got said at the 9 month appointment.

If she wàs poorly I can also imagine she wasn't feeding well anyhow. DS had croup recently and only took tiny feeds when his breathing was rough (and only played with his solids for several days). A few months like that would certainly compromise her nutrition regardless.