Vegan breastfeeding has caused an 11-month-old baby to die and the parents are charged with neglect after an autopsy indicated the baby suffered from severe deficiencies in Vitamin B12 and Vitamin A. Both these nutrients are known to be critical to a child’s development and sorely lacking in a vegan diet. This is why doctors strongly advise against nursing mothers and growing children following a vegan diet (1).
Vegans have long been advised to take B12 supplements as long term veganism runs the huge risk of serious B12 deficiency as well as other nutrients only found in animal foods such as true Vitamin A. Beta carotene is not true vitamin A nor does it easily convert to adequate amounts of Vitamin A in the body to sustain optimal health.
While charging the parents in this tragedy is questionable as it smacks of too much interference by government into private life, it does communicate a clear message to other vegans: abstinence from all animal foods is a danger to one’s health and most particularly, your baby!
It also sends a clear message that what a nursing Mother eats definitely DOES affect the quality of her breastmilk, particularly with vegan breastfeeding. Many breastfeeding advocates insist that breastmilk will include all a baby needs despite what the Mother eats, but clearly this is not the case.
Traditional cultures took great care to ensure that pregnant and breastfeeding mothers consumed ample amounts of animal foods rich in vitamins A, D, E, K2 and of course B12. These foods included grass-fed butter, pastured eggs, liver, seafood, and fish eggs. Notice that none – NOT ONE of these traditionally sacred foods is plant-based!
Incidentally, the 2017 vegan film What The Health was unable to cite a single successful vegan population group either. Why? Because there are none. Ever.
If you are pregnant and breastfeeding and would like to learn what foods will maximally support the health of your baby while nursing, please check this link for the complete listing of traditionally sacred foods for optimal fetal and baby development. These foods will also ensure the preservation of your own health during pregnancy and lactation which can easily deplete a Mother’s nutritional stores leaving her vulnerable to exhaustion.
Vegan Parents Convicted
The vegan breastfeeding mother and father whose baby died as described in this article were convicted by a French court to 5 years in prison due to the imbalanced vegan diet the mother ate which led to nutrient-poor breastmilk and a failure to thrive child who eventually fell ill from severe nutrient deficiency and died without the parents ever seeking proper medical attention (source).
For more information on how vegan breastfeeding and also a vegan diet devastate the health of children, read about how a 12-year-old vegan was diagnosed with the degenerating bones of an 80-year-old. Dr. Faisal Ahmed MD, a pediatrician treating the child, said that the dangers of forcing children to follow a strict vegan diet need to be publicized.
Unfortunately, vegan parents don’t seem to be getting the message quickly enough. The latest case involves vegans who nearly starved their 5-month-old baby to death feeding him potato mash instead of the doctor advised organic formula.
The child, who weighed just over 8 pounds and had sunken eyes and protruding ribs, is recovering but will likely suffer long-term damage from the experience (source).
References
Angelina Jolie says veganism nearly killed her
Supersize Me Girlfriend Quits Veganism
Vitamin A Vagary
Vitamin B12: Vital Nutrient for Good Health
French vegan couple whose baby died of vitamin deficiency after being fed solely on breast milk face jail for child neglect
I think people want to breast feed way to long these days and that may be one of the problems, my daughter started motioning us (pushing her food away and reaching out for ours and she also made chewing motions with her mouth to mimic what we were doing when we ate) at 4 months she wanted to eat what we were eating and so I mashed little amounts of our food to suppliment her formula, she didn’t like baby cereals and the only gar food she would eat was sweet potato. She was very small when she started eating normal food and she never had any trouble with it. She began drinking 2% dairy milk at 10 months and had no problems digesting it. Homo was too fatty and constipated her. I think moms are told that breast feeding is the best nutrition for their child and so they think they have to do it for too long. If your child is not thriving don’t you think you should change what your doing for that child’s well being. All these health guru’s just want you to do what they say and not think for ourselves anymore. Think about it………..
By the way my daughter was always off the charts in growth and head size and she is a strait A student so I don’t want to hear anything about how we neglected her. You have to follow your child very closely and watch their development to make sure your doing the right thing for them.
You have got to be kidding. Read the WHO statement on breastfeeding. Babies should be exclusively breastfed until 6 months of age and then started on appropriate solid foods. Your statement bout babies being breastfed too long is terribly uninformed. If you did not breastfeed your child, how are you qualified to give your opinion about how long babies are breastfed?
H didn’t say she didn’t breastfeed, only that her dd wanted real food at 4 months. Both of you sound ignorant in that you think all babies follow some rule book. One baby does NOT make an expert out of a mother. WHO can only make generalized statements. Parents should not be made to feel like bad parents if they don’t follow WHO. Our society is very fickle on what it thinks about anything. The “right” way of thinking changes with the times. We make the best choices we know to make at the time we make them. We learn from mistakes.
As someone else mentioned, there is more to this story than veganism.
Take that vegans! When will they accept that is only in human nature to consume other animals? :/
This is very sad, BUT why didnt the pediatrician noticed anything or why didnt he/she ask if the parent was a vegan? If she is a new mom, she may not have been aware that her diet could be harmful to her baby.
I didn’t read the entire article. Just read what the French court said. So, the baby was sick and they never sought help. Wow. This makes it even worse. Why? They have health care and let the baby go? Can’t imagine how the baby suffered. 🙁
Even so if the child is breastfed by a vegan mother, where are the multi-vitamins? When I was having children the doctor always prescribed mult-vitamins. If he or she knew that mama was a vegan you would think that he or she would have prescribed the right kind of them to full fill the babies needs and not be malnourished. Something about this just doesn’t seem right. Like something is missing from the story. As far as going to prison for 5 years. I really don’t see that would do any good. Teaching the parents before allowing any more children would seem like the right way to go.
This is sad. Why would you add to the guilt and anguish. They were new parents, how would they know. I mean, if they were told the baby was not getting enough nutrients, yes, they should get punished, but if nobody knew, why blame them. I feel sorry for them. Very, very sad.
I am seeing everyone focus on the fact the parent was vegan. The reality is that if she would have taken the baby to the hospital for regular checkups this would not have happened. Either she would have been informed what to do or the medical profession could have reported her for neglect and had the baby removed. So while the diet didn’t help the baby, the lack of medical care was worse.
the big picture is the baby was 11 months old with obvious signs of failure to thrive and no medical intervention was sought. This doesn’t happen over night, and is due to neglect.
It is unfortunate for the parents – Was the mother tested to see if she was vitamin deficient? Vegan diets are great but need to be more aware of variety and food combining to make it work. GMO foods are a problem and since these foods are not labeled in the USA …. most people are unaware of GMO and modification have been producing adverse effects… Keep also in mind more people drink purified water which takes the naturally occurring minerals out … Spring water is great source of minerals …
read comments also:
(many other sites will verify)
http://www.fitsugar.com/Vegan-Foods-High-Vitamin-B12-15355120
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articles/food-sources-of-vitamin-A.php
Just because your a vegetarian or vegan I don’t believe that you should force you child/children to be. My step mother did that and now that my half brother is 12 he decided that’s not what he wanted and decided to try meat and it made him very ill. Just because your something dose not mean you need to make you child that. That’s like saying hey I gay, because I’m your parent you will be too… What they did was very selfish, that child deserved to make his own choice although he could not talk clearly his body was talking…
Just because you’re omnivore doesn’t mean you should force your child to be one. If you put a chicken and an apple and a green bean in front of a baby – which one do you think he’s going to eat? Let a BABY decide what to eat? Moronic! They would eat the cat litter!