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
Actually as a practicing doctor I can tell you that being a vegan mother and breastfeeding doesn’t actually in and of itself cause malnutrition in infants. In fact there are numerous cases of malnutrition deaths in ‘meat eating’ mothers every year. Call your local child services to find out. It isn’t a particular diet that is to blame, its a lack of vigilance. So ANY diet can cause malnutrition, not just vegan, but a meat eating diet as well. And for the record there are numerous plant based foods that provide a large helping of Vitamin A, Vitamin b12 and it is more then possible to have a healthy diet on just plant matter without supplements. Supplements just make the diet easier to maintain.
It amazes me how so may “practicing doctors” feel that they have any authority whatsoever to opine on nutrition. How much did you study nutrition in medical school, like 15 minutes?
B12 is not available in ANY plant foods. It can only be obtained in animal foods. The B12 that is in plant foods is not the type that is in usable form. “Plant foods said to be sources of B12 actually contain B12 analogs (called cobamides)–substances that block the uptake of true B12 and increase the body’s need for the nutrient.” http://www.westonaprice.org/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-b12
So we should take your word against a Doctor. Are you american by any chance.
You should have questioned whether John R is a Doctor.
Thank you- good to hear an educated response.
you need to do some research here. what else was going on in the home? i’m guessing the parents did something to piss off authorities…
read: http://www.naturalnews.com/031883_vegans_criminals.html
This is the most ridiculous article I have ever read. I’ve been eating a healthy, balanced vegan diet for years now. I know countless vegan families with healthy, thriving babies and children. The United Nations, Dr. Benjamin Spock, former president Bill Clinton, and countless other prominent people and organizations all hail a plant-based diet as essential to our livelihood as a species. Articles like this come around every now and then with biased, incorrect information and vegan families, and it makes me wonder who is really behind them, because there is conclusive proof (found in books like The China Study) that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that living vegan is the best thing we can do for our health, for the animals, and for our world.
Animal products are laden with saturated fat, cholesterol, and become carcinogenic when
heated. This is really and truly a rare instance where someone wasn’t eating a balanced diet, regardless of it being vegan or not. For more info, visit The Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine, http://www.pcrm.org. -Lindsay Wolf, founder of http://www.kissmeimvegan.com
As an educated vegan mother of a thriving 13 month old, I have to say that this author is probably leaving out important details in the child’s death. Firstly, it’s a tragedy and denouncing all people who consume a certain diet is too extreme. The author obviously doesn’t know much about nutrition.
I breastfeed my son on demand still and he eats solids. I had a check up a few weeks ago and my doctor said that my health was perfect; I’m not deficient in anything.
So many of these comments are absolutely ridiculous. There’s nothing wrong with being vegan.
Exactly!
The MAIN problem was the ‘lack of solid food’, which caused malnutrition. I think we ‘sensible mothers’ know when to introduce solid food to our infants, but not later than ELEVEN MONTHS after the baby’s birth.
Putting the blame (mainly) on the VEGAN part is unfair, although I love eating meat myself, and support breastfeeding as much as I can.
Be it SOLELY feeding the eleven-month-old baby with formula milk, or milk of a mother omnivore mother, the baby would still be starving and suffer from malnutrition, obviously, if not dead now……
Hi Sarah,
Excellent article. I have always wondered about vegans. You would think that if they run a vitamin B 12 deficiency that they would come to the conclusion that their diet is not a good one. I don’t understand them. In any event, this is a tragedy. And I am with you. I would not prosecute the parents but I would educate them so as to avoid this problem in the future.
One thing I want to mention…when I gave birth to my son, he was early and so I had to express my milk and then feed him with a little tube. I would store my milk in the hospital nursery fridge. There were a few other new moms who had to do this too. I was shocked at the variation in the color of the breast milk. One or two of us had very yellow milk, while others had pale yellow milk, and still others white milk. While I was pregnant I craved butter, meat, etc. I did not yet know about WAP and Sally Fallon but I followed my intuition and ate what I craved. (I also have a great mom…86 and in fabulous health…who NEVER ate anything but full-fat food and advised me to do the same.). Interestingly, my milk was very yellow.
Unfortunately, I did not produce a lot of milk. I was 40…and later found out I had a blood disease that even made it difficult to carry a full term pregnancy let alone produce breast milk…so I needed to supplement my son’s milk. (He’s my miracle baby!) I thought about the milk bank thing but ruled against it as I just had a general uncomfortableness with the idea.
At that time I discovered Sally Fallon’s book. It was a lot for me to digest and am only now – years later – fully trying to incorporate ALL of it into our lives. But I did take the section on homemade formula to heart. I want to share with your readers that even if you can’t follow the recipe to the letter, it’s still worth doing. It did provide good nutrition for my son. He grew and developed beautifully. He is tall and slime but with a strong physique and a wide face with great teeth. Almost 13 years old now and never a cavity or ear infection. From the days of his infanthood, I have continued him on cod liver oil and butter oil. He does get sick now and again (as a matter of fact he has a summer cold right now) but overall he has excellent health – better than his peers – and no allergies. So although it can be hard for some of us moms to accept that we may not be able to make enough milk, Sally Fallon has provided us a wonderful alternative.
Love,
Mary
most folks today have B12 deficiencies..has nothing to do with being vegan. y doctor told me their is a run on B12 and her pts, except me, are NOT vegan! do some research
Baby Breastfed By Vegan Mother Dies – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/0cq0PIn
I’d love to know why all the vegans act like they’re better than people that eat meat? Saying things like the only natural diet, ethical choice etc. More like a fashionable, trendy choice that you get to look down on people for no reason at all. I don’t care what you eat; I don’t know any of you people (obviously), but why do you feel the need to criticize others?
I’m not criticising you. The vegan’s here appear only to be defending their choices against those who are criticising them – I think you have it around the wrong way.
Perhaps I should criticise- as I do think my food choices are more ethical than a non-vegans. Not wanting to harm animals when there is no nutritional need (yes, that’s right) to do so and wanting to be healthy- is not a bad thing – or do you see being peaceful as bad?
And is not “fashionable” or “trendy”- vegans have been around for a long time. We’re just more noticible now with modern technology.
I am curious about one thing in this sad story. I was not aware that, during autopsies, a persons vitamin intake is tested. Is this normal?
this is just my opinion and i could be wrong but i think fungal infections are to blame…am i wrong to think that vegans eat a lot of yeast and sugar? eating yeast, sugar and grains will get you unhealthy.. for more info i highly recommend checking out this info: knowthecause.com
Some vegans might (through unhealthy food choices), but most vegans eat a lot less sugar at least than the standard meat eater (although this may not be true for Americans as they have more “vegan” junk food than other western countries). This is primarily because a lot of junk food (candy, crisps, heavily processed foods etc. ) are not vegan, so we don’t eat it. Other western countries also do not put sugar in bread and other basic staples like Americans do, so speaking from an Australian perspective- vegans don’t have anywhere near as much sugar in their diets. But from working in the US for two ski seasons- I noticed that there is a whole lot more vegan junk food available and most things that I would have considered to have been savouries in Australia or the UK, tasted sugary in America… So, you may be right about SOME American vegans (but I wouldn’t want to lump them all into the one basket as again, a lot of vegans are health concious and would try not to eat the vegan “junk” food or would eat it in moderation.)
That makes sense. I’m a fellow Aussie and being vegetarian tends to keep me out of fast food places since many of them sell literally nothing I can eat. If you’re really strict even the fries are often off the menu because of beef flavouring.