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. Â Beta carotene is not true vitamin AÂ 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:Â 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 VeganismÂ
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
Any child would die under such conditions regardless if mother is vegan or not. Get your facts right and stop publishing misleading anti-vegan articles…PS: I am not vegan myself but can’t stand biased articles as thisone
I’m quite sure all the meat eaters here that are saying you HAVE to have meat and dairy to be healthy and that we are natural omnivores haven’t actually spent any time looking into their disagreement. It is so common for people who are opposed to vegetarians and vegans to not actually know anything about it. Before I was vegetarian I was the same ‘crazy diet’, ‘unhealthy’ ‘unnecessary’ etc. But when you actually do your research you’ll be very surprised about the facts.
I am not surprised by this story, that the mother didn’t have enough nutrients for the baby. At 11 months old the baby should have been on solid food, most people would have known that babies need more than just milk, it doesn’t have much to do about her being vegan (although, in my opinion, I have yet to see a healthy looking vegan) Vegan or not, they didn’t provide for the baby, a year old baby needs/should have been eating not just drinking… So yes the parents should be charged…
Many meat and dairy eaters are also deficient in B12, it is not actually a vitamin, but a bacteria that the body can sustain and produce on it’s own. Cows ect eat grass where the bacteria is also sourced, and hence eating their dairy and meat means that the B12 goes into our bodies, but that doesn’t mean our bodies can absorb it, and often if you are deficient, you can have a lot of it in your bloodstream but due to the other lacking conditions your body can’t use it. That said, the parents should have gone to the doctor.
What about all the illnesses and sicknesses children get from eating meat, and milk from another animal? If it was any other child whose mother eat a standard diet, the child could have died for the same reason, and yet no one would have checked their B12 levels.
I am a physician. The human body IS NOT MADE FOR VEGANISM! Everything about our GI tract, from out dentition to the make up and length of our gut screams OMNIVORE! We are designed to eat BOTH meat and veggies, and optimal health is at best difficult if you leave out the meat. TRUE, most Americans get way too much meat, and too much meat can cause problems, I admit that. However, NO meat also can cause problems, and I challenge you to admit that TRUTH.
If YOU want to do it–FINE–get as balanced a diet as you can, and enjoy the health benefits that CAN be obtained from veganism and I HOPE you do not experience any of the problems also obtained from it. However, DO NOT risk your child, who CANNOT make informed consent of their own on this issue!!!
seriously wake up . this has nothing to do with the fact that the parents were vegan , it has everything to do with the fact this child consumed NO SOLID FOOD at all . Find me an article saying a vegan baby who DOES eat solid food died of malnutrition because of the veganism . Can you ? No . So wake up and realize it was the lack of solid food
I agree 100% with charging the parents with neglect!!
Jeeze, get your facts straight. This kid didn’t die because the parents were vegans, it died because they were cuckoo and tried to self-medicate it.
Maybe the author of this piece should actually quote a source? Like this one? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/01/joel-sergine-le-moaligou-convicted
How can anyone believe that a mother’s food intake doesn’t affect the breast milk. Let me tell you some science and logic: if it doesn’t go IN, it can’t come OUT.
This article is infuriating. This is an isolated incident and makes no mention of the thousands of vegan mothers who nurse their children and who’s children grow to be much healthier than the ones on meat/dairy/processed foods diet. Almost half of all meat eaters have a B12 deficiency. It is NOT specific to veganism and it has nothing to do with eating plant based. Neither animals nor plants synthesize B12. Just because someone is vegan, it doesn’t mean they eat well and plant based. She could have been on a crap diet. Or made her child had difficulty absorbing B12, which is the case with many people whom have to supplement – and most are meat eaters. The only time I had to supplement my B12 and my iron was when I ate meat. You can get enough B12 from certain mushrooms and seaweeds, along with other plant foods. The key is to eat organically grown foods that aren’t sprayed to death depleting them of any good bacteria. Feces have the highest concentration of B12. Those who grow plant foods naturally using manure, have the highest levels of B12. That’s where it comes from. To eat cancer causing, artery clogging meat just to receive the B12 bacteria from the animal’s intestines – which is essentially what you’re ingesting – is not a good trade off, especially since there are better, healthier ways of obtaining B12. This article is ridiculous and completely ignorant to what proper nutrition is and it also gives a false impression that a vegan diet is what killed the baby, when that’s not even remotely the case. Good job spreading disinformation though and creating a rise. Mission accomplished.
Animal products do have nutritious benefits. Vegans can obtain their nutrients from other sources, but that is not the only way to do so.
What turns me off about veganism is the notion that once you put meat in your mouth you have essentially consumed poison. This is not true.
Just as it is possible to eat vegan and be balanced and healthy, it is extremely possible, and I can confidently say, a lot easier to eat an omnivorous diet and be healthy and balanced.
I have eaten vegan for several months and Paleo for several months, both exclusively with no cheating.
BOTH MADE ME FEEL GOOD at first. But Paleo was a lot easier to maintain and I felt was way more balanced for LONG TERM nutrition. I didn’t have to supplement to feel healthy and have more energy with the Paleo diet, but after about 3 months of exclusive Veganism I was craving meat.
Plenty of people live a vegan lifestyle, but I don’t look up to them. It’s a choice they make and I respect it, but I don’t agree with it nor feel like I have to accept someone’s snide remarks that Veganism is superior to all other forms of eating. It simply isn’t, and if it were, the science would be there to back it up 100% with little room for doubt. Guess what. It simply isn’t.