Newborn baby vegan

[starflake]

I'm due in December and I'm contemplating raising Baba as vegan. I'm vegetarian years & only eat a minimal amount of dairy, if Baba is vegan I'll go down the vegan route also. I'm contemplating this as I know the benefits of not consuming dairy or meat but I've never raised a baby vegan! My other DC are meat eaters bar one who is veggie like me. I'm looking for advice on formulas & how difficult it will be weaning etc. I'm planning on breastfeeding with some combi feeding so maybe one or two formula feeds a day after supply comes in. I'm not posting this in pregnancy section as I'm not up for a bashing on how harmful this will be for baba. TIA

From a 2018 study report:

Infants who consumed soy-based formula as newborns had differences in some reproductive-system cells and tissues, compared to those who used cow-milk formula or were breastfed, according to a new study.

@aliensprig calm down. I know it’s hard hearing if you’re vegan. I was firmly down the vegan rabbit hole myself not so long ago. And whilst you absolutely can be healthy as a vegan, babies, children, teenage girls, sick people and pregnant woman are a little more complicated. That’s why I said the OP should take expert advice from a clinical dietitian. I think it’s best in theses situations to not take advice from people with a vegan agenda who get their facts from bollocks vegan Netflix documentaries and us ransoms off the internet 😊

Ransoms? I meant randoms 😂

That’s ok Wiltshire lass we’re saying the same thing anyway

@wiltshirelass2019 I can't see where she states that it's not about ethics? Choosing to eat animal products or not is inextricably about ethics. It's like saying there's no such thing as cause and effect.

I agree that a vegan diet for small children is less straightforward than a non vegan diet and it does take some thinking about. But the NHS says it's fine if carefully planned.

@INeedNewShoes The soy argument is ridiculous. If it gave people big breasts it would be the #1 selling product in the world 😁

Plus a vast amount of soy is fed to animals - so you're consuming it anyway-

"UK Government statistics show that in 2015/16 total imports of soy beans, soy meal and soy oil totalled 3.1 million tonnes. Of this approximately:
1.1 million tonnes (35%) was fed to livestock,
1.42 million tonnes (45%) was used in food products for humans,
0.58 million tonnes (18%) was used in non-food products."

@INeedNewShoes also, your quote states 'differences' were they positive or negative differences? Please explain. There are a lot of hormones in Cows milk- as it's breast milk, just from another species.

@Clayplease of course! it depends on the child and if the parent is knowledgeable enough to give the child the right nutrition. That’s why I said a clinical dietician should be involved. Most vegans I have come across are woefully lacking in knowledge when it comes to their own nutrition, let alone a baby’s. When I was vegan and severely anemic my vegan mates all advised me to eat loads of spinach which was the absolute worst advice and made me even sicker.

@Clayplease yes being vegan is about ethics, I know I was a vegan and understand and agree with most things but I don’t agree with a lot a vegan nutrition, most of it is propaganda led. The health of your baby should come before your ethical beliefs in my opinion x

@wiltshirelass2019

Perfectly calm thanks, just passionate about the cause and 20 weeks preg so bear with!

I don’t agree with a lot a vegan nutrition, most of it is propaganda led

I think you'll find it's the meat and dairy industries which are propaganda led. Millions of pounds have been and are currently being spent promoting meat, dairy and eggs to the public, whether that's in advertising or in papers like the Daily Mail - it's all funded by big business, lots of wealthy fingers in all sorts of pies. I don't regularly read newspapers or watch TV but I can see how you'd be confused by adverts for vegan products and consider them propaganda. Tell me, if there's someone profiting from veganism, who is it? If you don't buy meat replacements and make your own plant milks etc, or donate to animal charities/activism groups, who benefits from veganism? It's... the animals, isn't it?

I appreciate and I'm sorry that you've had a bad time of it healthwise, but what you're saying is a purely personal experience and doesn't apply to the millions of us who are vegan and perfectly healthy (ie. aren't dead or dying ). I can give my own anecdotal experiences of friends who eat meat but also have iron deficiency anaemia, chronic b12 deficiencies, etc. But those aren't relevant either because everyone is different, and not everyone lives off junk food!

I completely agree that baby's health comes first, and being pregnant myself I'd obviously do anything my health practitioner said I needed to. If my gp said I was dying of b12 or protein deficiency and needed animal products or my baby would die, I'd eat the animal products, no question. But as it stands I am actually healthier now than I was as an omni, which again is personal to me but doesn't fit with your experience.

It all boils down to careful, sensible planning and support from health professionals. No fancy supplements here, just your standard pregnancy multivitamin :)

Thanks @Clayplease for the info re: soy, I'd forgotten that basically everyone in the UK is consuming it regardless of diet. I'm still waiting for my enormous soy boobs! 😭

@aliensprig yes completely agree with most of what you’ve said.

I was super healthy as a vegan for years until my vitamin stores ran out, then I started to suffer health consequences, I’m currently pregnant too and would not dream of running the risk and experimenting on my unborn child because of my ethical beliefs. I can’t stand the taste/texture of meat but I’m eating small amounts to make sure I’m covering all bases nutrition wise, as advised by my midwife.

There is an awful lot of vegan propaganda out there, most nutritional studies are cherry picked to suit the vegan agenda. I agree there’s also a lot of propaganda out there from dairy industry etc. But like most things there’s a balance and the correct answer is usually somewhere I the middle. Veganism is a bit extreme healthwise for most just like only eating meat would be an extreme way to exist.

@aliensprig also i don’t eat soy at all. I don’t eat any processed foods such as soy milk etc and only eat grass fed free range cows.

@aliensprig @Clayplease there’s a huge difference between a growing baby consuming soy than there is an adult!

I want to write something sweary, but don't want to get told off....You'd need to find a vegan donor for additional milk if combi feeding is your goal. To even concider formula as an option if you are vegan is ethically defunct.

And don’t forget there are more of us ex vegans out there than current vegans! There’s a reason for that x

There is an awful lot of vegan propaganda out there, most nutritional studies are cherry picked to suit the vegan agenda.

Think about it - this actually fits the meat and dairy industries better, doesn't it...?

There is no "vegan agenda". That sentence simply doesn't make sense! As I said before, if you don't buy the replacements then no one benefits from your being vegan. Apart from the animals!

Soy is perfectly fine for growing children - another lie carefully "researched" by the dairy industry to discredit plant milks. That's literally all these research papers are, by the way - just a power play to win the consumer's money. Quite often they will be obviously funded by a meat or dairy company (like how Happy Egg funds articles on how healthy eggs are - if that isn't biased research, I don't know what is).

I don't drink soy milk as I prefer oat, but would happily give it to my children. Wysoy formula, although not vegan, is made from soy and is a legitimate alternative to cow's milk formula that medical professionals recommend for lactose intolerant babies - so I'm not sure why they would recommend it if it messed up human hormones? The entire soy argument is murky anyway and stems from the US, where the majority of soy produce is GM - having said that, I wouldn't trust the additives in their dairy produce either! It has extra significance for me as I have an underactive thyroid, which I had pre-veganism and is supposedly worsened by soy, so I really question the validity of these "studies".

Oh do stop saying Baba. You sound ridiculous.

aliensprig yeah I do tend to agree with you there. There’s so much propaganda out there from big industries. However having come out the other side of veganism I’ve realised that there are many untruths in the vegan community regarding nutrition too. So I’m sticking to a normal balanced diet - the diet that humans have thrived in long before veganism came along. Each to their own though, every adult has the right to choose their diet.

It doesn’t make any logical sense that there could be a problem with soy when you consider how much of it people in east Asia eat

Soya formula is not a milk that would be suggested by medical professionals for lactose intolerance or dairy intolerance as there are other more appropriate milks. They would not suggest it at all for babies under 6 months when it is their only food source

Do they not tend to have more fermented soya products?

@dementedpixie I don't consider formula made from the milk of another species to be appropriate for a baby or growing child either, especially given the number of infants diagnosed with dairy allergies/intolerances. And yet people insist on feeding it to their children! Bizarre.

Even if you can get hold of a dairy free formula, you wont be able to combi feed. The formula is vile which exclusively formula fed babies might get used to but breastfed babies wont.

Also consider how you will get your baby the nutrients it needs. This couple didnt and their baby developed rickets www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2018/12/24/couple-fed-infant-daughter-vegan-diet-restricted-gave-rickets-8280699/amp/

@aliensprig, I'm someone who fed it to my children. I didn't find it bizarre at all. The are no dairy allergies/intolerances here either

I highly doubt babies millennia ago could eat meat until their teeth were all in so I guess vegan is an option for a while.

It would always be good to give children a choice in life, so educate them on benefits but be open to allowing them to experiment for themselves.

In the end mine often avoids meat through choice but has a bit of a dairy addiction. If slowing helping him see meat as only a small part of his diet and that there are many options out there. I currently am trying him on veggie chicken nuggets! So far so good!