vegan parents to be prosecuted

[HecateTheCrone]

vegans in dock over baby's death

A tragic story. Clearly these parents did not intend any harm to their baby. They must be devastated. However, does this mean that parental choices that have the potential to cause harm to the baby will see them jailed if something does happen to the baby? Smoking, drinking, etc, as well as diet. Is this a good thing? bad thing?

I think, if you remove the twin emotives of 'vegan' and 'breastfeeding' from the story what you've got are parents of an extremely sick child that ignored doctors and failed to get it medical help until it was too late. A neglect case, in short. It doesn't matter how the sickness started, to deny a child access to proper medical services - and they had been advised to hospitalise the baby 2 months earlier according to the article - is inhuman.

There was a case in the States where a religious couple allowed their child to die, preferring to trust prayer than medicine. Neglect is neglect.

I don't get why the article is so focused on the fact the parents are vegan - surely the point is that they didn't progress to weaning? (a separate issue to the fact that they happen to be vegan? or am i missing something?)

I agree with chil

the vegan/breastfeeding is neither here nor there

not taking their underweight ill child for proper medical help is neglectful

nothing wrong with following a particular lifestyle per se, or using complementary therapies etc, but not where it has an adverse affect on health

The point is that they chose to watch a baby remain sick for months and cover it in clay poultices rather than take it to a hospital for treatment when they were advised to do so by a qualified doctor. I think the original assumption that 'clearly they did not intend to harm their baby' is quite wrong.

Not sure about this
Obviously the baby should have been hospitalised at the 9 month check (or before!!) and for that they were neglectful! however this does seem to contradict what I thought were breastfeeding facts - that a mother would have to be near starvation before her milk is sub standard (and who knows, maybe she is?) and that a baby should be OK on bm alone until about a year. DS had little other than bm until after a year, he was far from fine but I don't believe it was diet related

Bloody idiots. Being vegan had nothing to do with it (actually, doed breast milk count?). Why did they think the baby didn't need 'real' food - when exactly were they planning on feeding the child? I am assuming they fed the 13 year old.

Morons.

I wonder if the mum was actually anorexic rather than vegan

Seems like there has been no intervention between the 9 month check up and calling an ambulance 2 months later -would a UK doctor have followed this up? -Seems odd that if the child needed hospitalisation at 9 months.

wahwahwah, while I agree with you if they 'chose' to feed the baby nothing but bm, it's not always that simple. As I said DS had little else when younger.

It looks like a couple of fucking ignorant wankers to me. Being an EBF vegan is not necessarily harmful to a baby if you know what you are doing.
It's not uncommon for stupid vegans to get ill themselves ie those who give up every kind of animal product for sentimental or superstitous reasons but don't know - or research - enough about basic nutrition to make sure they are getting enough protein etc. But add the veganism to a woo-bollocks self-righteous type of fuckwittery that thinks seeking medical treatment for a sick child is Being Controlled By The Man and, well, you end up with dead children.

Bloody idiots. I think the veganism and breastfeeding are red herrings. They are reckless, neglectful shits.

Of course their lifestyle is relevant.

They lived as vegans. Fair enough if that's how they want to live, but a baby cannot thrive on a vegan diet - babies need protein. And he would not have got that from bm alone - as the mother didn't take in any herself.

And they "realise the mistake they have made" - clearly they feel no remorse over the fact they were responsible for their child's death.

Treating him from the books they had read - what kind of freaks are these people?

"The couple did not follow the doctor's advice to hospitalise the baby who was suffering from bronchitis and was losing weight when they went for the nine-month check-up," Daquo said.

"They preferred applying clay or cabbage poultices whose recipes they found in their books. These are people who read the wrong thing at the wrong time," said Daquo.

They did this for TWO MONTHS. It clearly wasn't working. They continued nevertheless. They clearly wanted to be right more than they wanted to rotect their child from harm, or at the very least, they were completely reckless as to their baby's state of health.

She should have been treated like a person, not an experiment.

Big red herring though, with the BF and vegan.

The issue is surely far more to do with ignoring dr's advice and treating with ludicrous home remedies.

at the photo caption, which says "A vegan diet forbids any animal product including eggs and cow's milk", as though that's why she's been giving her "mother's milk" instead.

Can't believe no one else was involved though, in my experience French doctors do not respond well to people ignoring their advice and are far more likely to report to SS than here. Really astonished there was no intervention.

Wannabe - you can get protein from other sources

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1768368.ece

i remember this case.

They're being prosecuted for being fuckwits who ignored medical advice and caused their child's death through malnutrition. Not for being vegan.

Protein in nuts, tofu etc.

wannabe, that isn't true.

Babies and children can have a healthy vegan diet - such a diet can provide protein.

But not if the parents are neglectful arseholes.

Yet again bad press for veganism and it's a total red herring.

Does anyone else remember the Mumsnetter whose acquaintance had a toddler with chronic bronchitis (but the mother wouldn't give him antibiotics) and chronic worms or nits or some sort of parasite) but the mother wouldn't treat him for that either? I wonder what happened, there.

Yes, I do :(

I think when you have a baby who seems very unwell (and a doctor has even pointed it out) then the correct thing to do is to immediately get medical help not use clay poltices or some other nonsence.

Veganism has got now't to do with it.

It's not a total red herring as their embracing of what they saw as veganism ( badly researched and applied) set them on the rocky road to this death. Whether they were compos mentis has yet to be established but had they ignored the plight of cattle at the slaughterhouse, the baby might well have survived simply because their previous diet was probably OK despite knowing zilch about nutrtion.
They were bad candidates for a lifestyle change obviously.

Why didn't the doctor hospitalise the child? Or at least follow it up robustly?

Apparently it was breast milk that caused the death, going by the Daily Fail's headline

'Vegan couple whose baby died of vitamin deficiency after she was fed on breast milk face jail for child neglect '