In news “Parents who left baby toothless and malnourished through forced vegan diet are spared jail”

[Azeema]

I think they should be in jail. 3yrs neglect is what they did to poor baby girl.

“A mother and father have been slammed by a judge in Australia for forcing a vegan diet on their baby daughter, leaving her seriously ill.

The girl, who is now in foster care, was left with no teeth and unable to stand up because of the malnourishment she suffered.

A court in Sydney heard the girl was 20 months old when she was found, yet weighed less than 11lbs and looked like she was three months old.

Now three, she has not developed properly and has suffered from rickets.”
Article at yahoo news
uk.news.yahoo.com/parents-avoid-jail-baby-girl-vegan-diet-084706894.html

The judge’s emphasis on “vegan” - unless the article takes the remarks out of context - is remarkably ignorant. Many, many people are bringing up very healthy vegan babies.

That goes far beyond some trendy vegan parents feeding their child a nutritionally deficient diet because they haven't done their research. That is abuse and severe neglect and would have been clear from very early on in the child's life.

That child was severely neglected by being fed a very poor diet, but as previous posters have said, it is possible to bring up healthy, well nourished children on a vegan diet, just as children can also suffer malnourishment and neglect whilst being fed a (bad) omnivorous diet.

I think that too. That these abusive parents use “vegan” as excuse for neglect. Like other parents might shrug and say “oh, I a drunk, not my fault” as excuse.
Baby suffered horribly and because of “vegan” excuse, they let off!

That is awful abuse but also looks like scaremongering propaganda. Australia has a powerful farming lobby who I'm guessing aren't too impressed with the steady creep of people adopting a vegan diet. The insert of related vegan bashing stories tells it all really. I hope the girl gets better with proper care.

Am I the only one who thought it didn’t sound dreadful what she was eating? Obviously we don’t know quantities but what I’m assuming was some kind of banana porridge for breakfast then toast with pb and jam and tofu potatoes etc for dinner ....
My 19 m o has an atrocious diet he’s so fussy id be over the moon if he ate that in a day so I think there must be a lot more to it than the article says for the child to be that small was she not given milk as a small baby? Or some kind of vegan ‘formula’ that’s not fit for purpose

Vegan babies can be perfectly healthy. Aren't all babies considered vegan if they're breastfed? I mean they're not having dairy from animal sources are they, only from their mother.

I think allowing a child to go visibly undernourished isn't anything about veganism and everything about straight forward neglect

Yes that days I take actually sounded ok....if you presume there was some kind of vegan milk too ? Something g else is wrong portion size or not being fed from day 1 s proper formula or breastmilk

My DD was ‘vegan’ for quite a long time as a baby and toddler due to being allergic to dairy and eggs. She also had other allergies that limited her diet further. I tried to feed her meat and fish but she wouldn’t eat them. She was not under nourished in this way at all! There was WAY more going on with that Australian family then just a vegan diet!

My baby was vegan (now 13yo and very much not vegan). He was a gorgeous chunky healthy baby (still gorgeous obviously and I’m proud that he has his own beliefs).

This is about neglect, not veganism.

A meat eater feeding their children meat is never seen as forcing their views on their children.

That day sounds shite tbh, and quite clearly is as the child was malnourished

This has fuck all to do with the child being 'forced a vegan diet' though, and everything to do with he fact they just didn't feed their child.

They got off by claiming the diet was vegan, but really it was just plain old neglect.

She weighed 11lbs at 20 months, they knew they were neglecting her

Or they could have just fed her a normal diet and there would have been less confusion

It’s just neglect it’s not really about veganism. Although I do think babies/children on a vegan diet need closer attention as vegan diets are tricky, not every vegan parent is knowledgable enough to give a child a healthy balanced diet.

I hope the girl gets better with proper care

The child had clearly been profoundly neglected in many ways, not just diet. It’s very likely that she will never fully recover I’m afraid. Serious early neglect leaves life long scars.

That is awful abuse but also looks like scaremongering propaganda. Australia has a powerful farming lobby who I'm guessing aren't too impressed with the steady creep of people adopting a vegan diet.

Yahoo UK are famously in the pockets of Aussie farmers.