Should the state arrest parents of vegan babies who die from B12 deficiency?
Asked by
Aster (
20023
)
March 29th, 2011
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
89 Answers
This article is very vague and where was the baby’s peditrican in all this, they should have know the mother was a vegan and should have known to be testing for the deficiencies that are common with people who choose to be vegetarian. No I don’t believe they should be charged if it is a case where they just didn’t know the baby wasn’t getting the nutrients but we don’t know all the facts here. The huge question is did they know??? Did the peditrician test for these things and let the parents know to give the baby supplements or not? If the peditrician did test and notify the parents then they should be charged.
Yes, if it can be proved they did it knowing the nutritional risks. It is possible it was just ignorance.
In which case, I think the loss of their child is enough punishment.
This is ridiculous. Why wouldn’t any doctor, knowing the parents were vegans, have tested the baby prior to it dying from deficiency?
The mother should have been on supplements after giving birth (due to her age, she should have had pre-natal vitamins until the baby was at least 4mos old). Then, she should have had a blood test to see if she was deficient. That article doesn’t give any indication what type of health the mom was in after birth.
Shall we charge parents in America for causing their tiny children to become diabetics from fast food exclusive diets? How about for gross obesity?
I think that it shouldn’t be so cut and dry. If you are able to raise a healthy child on a vegan diet (or whatever diet you prefer), there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But if your infant is underweight, why aren’t you consulting with a physician? Did these parents let their feelings about food interfere with their child’s health? It almost appears that way. If your child is literally starving to death, how can you not notice?
There has to be more to this story. I’m inclined to agree with the law on this one, until more details are available. You don’t accidentally starve your child to death. They had to know that something was wrong.
@SpatzieLover GA. Should parents be arrested when their obese , diabetic child dies from a fastfood diet? I would bet that would never happen.
@SpatzieLover If they knowingly didn’t give the baby supplements that the baby needed and was told by the peditrican to me that would be more like keeping insulin from a diabetic child who you know needs it or a child who has an infection keep them from getting antibiotics…
@creative1 The supplemants should have been given to the mom. Period. I was an “older” mom. The supplements went through me to my newborn.
Anyone treating a 37yr old mom would know the mom needs supplements longer than a 20yr old mom. The doctor treating this family could be just as negligent here.
@SpatzieLover But did she refuse to take these supplements is my question??? or even give them to her baby the article doesn’t say
If she refused to take them or refused to give them to her child that is a form of neglect
Is it possible that the parents thought of the child as merely slim? And/or that there were no pediatricians in the village? IMO, the parents felt they were doing the right thing by their child by keeping it away from animal fat and dairy and were possibly happy it wasn’t overweight.
@creative1 Neither article gives any indication.
@Aster It’s completely possible that the entire family is slim. The article does not provid any info on the well-being of the parents at all. We’ll have to follow this one to see what comes out of it.
We don’t know all the facts as I said if it was a case where they just didn’t know, then no she shouldn’t be charged. But if they did know then they should be
The article that @Aster posted got on my nerves… Vegan children, for example, are not obese or diabetic. Oh really?
In any case, no the parents shouldn’t be charged. The doctor, on the other hand, should be investigated. Some sort of red flag should have gone off at various milestone checkups.
And here is another article where it states the baby had pneumonia
My concern would be, if this is such a small village, is it possible the baby had some sort of undiagnosed syndrome that may have been the actual issue here? With the information given, it is difficult for me to “convict” the parents in the court of public opinion.
@theninth Some sort of red flag should have gone off at various milestone checkups. This is exactly my thought. An infant isn’t of proper size/weight and no blood tests were taken?
@theninth How do we know the doctor wasn’t investigated and what they came up with was the parents with held the vitimins from the child.
I know personally from having a sick child that if I with held treatment from my child it would be neglect on my part. I think how could you do that to your child? I am up day and night giving asthma treatments and they only had to give a simple supplement to me if they neglected to give it to the child then that is definately neglect.
Point is, something doesn’t add up.
We aren’t getting the whole story, and there has to be a reason that they are charging these parents. If they really haven’t investigated the doctor or anything beyond “the parents are vegan,” then the problem is with the law…
I think we need more articles on this particular case in order to properly access the situation than what this little article is giving us
This is neglect, and yes, they should be charged.
I agree, @creative1, and the 2nd article is useless in making a decision. It is clearly biased, and although they are perfectly entitled to their opinion, the examples in that article are extreme. There is a happy medium between veganism and bacon double cheeseburgers. heh.
I think @ANef_is_Enuf is right- lots of details are missing. We need to know a lot more about what went on behind the scenes to be able to judge whether the parents were neglectful or not.
I also agree with @theninth that the article linked by @Aster was obnoxious. Being proud of a vegan diet is one thing, but the author came off as arrogant and a little stupid. “Beware vegans, they’re out to get you!” Pfft.
@creative1 That is not the case everywhere though. Here in Wisconsin for example this girl died of asthma that the parents treated with prayer.
So would the vegans be better if they said Veganism is their religion?
Okay, here’s another article, now I just wonder more. The baby wasn’t hospitalized by the doctor for the bronchitis, and the parents didn’t follow directions. The couple has a healthy 13yr old.
The ‘victim’ tone of the article is offensive.
Any child’s death is investigated and an autopsy performed to find the cause of death. This is not ‘because they were vegans’. It is to find a cause of death.
The cause of death was malnutrition. It was preventable. The parents are responsible. The child was 11 months old and still taking only breast milk? Criminal.
“They distrust traditional medicine and prefer to treat their children using their own methods, in accordance with advice from books.
“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.”
Neglect.
@cazzie The child was 11 months old and still taking only breast milk? Criminal. Seriously? The “baby” teeth are called milk teeth. I know plenty of people that feed exclusively breast milk until 12 mos.
@SpatzieLover probably not when their 11 month old is underweight and sickly.
@ANef_is_Enuf Actually, yes. I have known several families with babies that are not well. The moms pump like cows to keep enough supply going.
And here is a list of vegan babies with a Failure to Thrive
I still think either this is a law or a doctor issue. If the doctor saw the infant, and noticed illness and failure to thrive, why wasn’t the government involved (does France have a CPS?)
@SpatzieLover I breastfed my son for 2 years, but he needed more than boobie by 4 months and was getting fortified cereal, and then all sorts of mushed veggies. He is a big, strong boy who is top of his class and started walking around 11 months.
Their child was sick and losing weight. The mother’s diet was deficient. Do you know how many calories you need to take in to keep breastfeeding? This is simple ignorance and there is no excuse.
Plenty of people breast feed kids older than that but the child should have begun eating baby food for devolmental milestones. They don’t necessarly have to wean from the breast but they need to learn to eat usually by 6 months otherwise they start to become delayed and it will be more difficult for them to learn how to eat.
I am siding with they were being neglectful parents in this situation and deserve what they have coming to them.
@creative1 & @cazzie There are all sorts of reasons (including a food allergy history) that others choose not to feed solids until 12 mos. My own SIL has had to keep several of her babies breast milk exclusive. And, yes, they were small babies.
I was not one of them. My son was on solids early…low and behold he most likely has severe food allergies, as well
Why should neglectful parents hold no responsibility in the death of their child if the government doesn’t step in?
They denied their child medical care. They refused hospitalization that was urged by the pediatrician. I don’t see how they are not at fault here. Maybe not exclusively, but this was clearly a ball dropped by the parents.
@ANef_is_Enuf I don’t see why the baby should have been allowed to go home with them. If the baby was showing signs of failure to thrive, had bronchitis and the parents refused medical care, the baby should have been kept.I am playing devil’s advocate here
Considering the details mentioned in the article that @cazzie posted, yes, they were neglectful and should be charged.
I can’t believe a baby of 11 months was only being fed breastmilk. Breastmilk is awesome, but older babies need more than that.
@SpatzieLover If a child appears unhealthy and too skinny, they should be eating more than just breastmilk. Especially a child who is almost a year old and is only receiving vegan breastmilk. My youngest began eating some easily digestable baby foods when she was only four months old. We really didn’t want to do that, but she was such a tiny baby and she always seemed hungry and would seriously cry and reach toward our plates when we were eating. As soon as we started giving her what she needed, she started gaining more weight and calmed down at mealtimes. A diet of strictly breastmilk at that age is not healthy.
Food allergies are why you only start a child on 1 food at a time and keep them on it for a week and see if there is a reaction, otherwise you add another food the next week and on and so forth. My children came with no medical historys so I had no idea if any allergies were going to be present to I had to watch carefully for a reaction because you never know.
The original article didn’t contain enough information to form a valid opinion. The other articles that do mention the parents purposefully went against medical advice do indicate willful neglect. I’m changing my opinion to yes, they should be charged. NOT because they’re vegan, however, and NOT because they chose to raise their child as vegan, but for ignoring medical advice.
I do still think the doctor should be investigated. I don’t know the laws for France, but I would assume they have something about a doctor being obligated to report abuse and/or neglect when they identify it.
Oh yeah, blame the veganism. Our babies (4 and 2) are vegan which has nothing to do with feeding them breastmilk alone (which shouldn’t be given to any baby as the only source of food after 6 months or so). Any parent with a brain (a rarity, I’ll grant you) knows B12 can be found in vegan sources as well. Don’t blame the approach if you’ve got some idiot parents out there.
(Without reading) has anyone considered the fact that human breast milk is just as carnivorous as cow milk? (Was that worded right?..?)
@Simone_De_Beauvoir I agree…vegan has nothing to do with it. The parents are idiots, period. They’re in the same line as parents who feed their kids nothing cookies and koolaide, and pour children’s Advil into them when they cry from hunger. That’s based on a news story I read about a child who died from malnutrition here in Wichita a few years back.
@Dutchess_III—human breastmilk is considered fine for vegans because it’s milk specifically intended for human children and is given with consent.
The argument against milk from other mammals is that they have to be bred to get them to produce milk, the milk is actually intended for the calf and not for humans, are milked frequently (well after the calfs are weaned) to cause them to keep producing, and done without the animal’s permission. There are also arguments against how cows are kept on some dairy farms (confined, hooked to milking machines hours at a time, given hormones and antibiotics, etc).
(I live with a vegan. I have heard all this repeatedly.. now I’m going to go get a large bowl of ice cream, made with 100% cow. ;) )
@theninth :) That cleared some stuff up! But…I don’t think the cows really mind. They LIKE it when they’re milked. Really, they do. I wouldn’t think it’s the worst life in the world. They pretty much run around in the fields eating until it’s time to be milked, unlike beef cattle.
And I’ve actually heard the argument against cows milk from a non-vegan (and very overweight) friend of mine back when my kids were little (in the 80’s.) This particular person would let her kids eat anything but wouldn’t let them drink cows milk because “cow’s milk is for baby calves.” Ok, and….what baby animals do brownies and potato chips feed in the wild, woman??
I don’t know what the diet is for milk cows. From what I’ve been half-assed researching, beef cows need antibiotics because the big farmers feed them almost exclusively corn, instead of grass and other grains, because corn fattens them up for market faster. But that limited diet also leaves them open to infection, hence beef cows do get antibiotics. I don’t know if that’s true for milk cows, though.
@Dutchess_III I come from geneations of dairy farmers. We have “made” cows that “like” to be milked. In nature, cows do not need anyone to milk them.
No cow or cattle “need” antibiotics in nature, either. Again, they have now been bred to “need” things from humans due to human intervention. Basically, we’ve taken the “hunt” out of of prey and made our killings of them easier on us.
@SpatzieLover I just say that cows that are ready to be milked like to be milked, just like a woman with aching breasts full of milk derive great relief from being milked by the baby. And yes, without constant “nursing” the cows would dry up.
If we didn’t ‘make’ those cows they wouldn’t exist…..I dated a dairy farmer in college. He had names for several of his cows and went out of his way to greet them and scratch their noses..they’d go out of their way to greet him. The cows were docile and seemed happy, and spent most of their time grazing in the fields..until milking time when they’d come in of their own accord. Would it have better for them to have never existed?
But you come directly from generations, which is not comparable to just a handful of my own experiences…what was it really like on the farms? Was it horrendous? My Mom came from Dairy farmers. I wish she was alive so I could ask her about their cows…
I’m not against vegan or anything else. These are just thoughts that are coming to me.
Like…well, just like beef and milk, vegetables are now mass produced, with some “unnatural” promptings. Like, corn. In the wild, before it was domesticated, corn was very small, much like the wheat family that it’s from. Due to breeding, it no longer resembles “natural” corn. Same with onions, potatoes, everything else. There are no veggies today that are “natural.” Plus…to be profitable, the vegetables need to be protected from bugs, fungus and bacteria….
Farms owned by family farmers are mostly wonderful. Unfortunately, corporate farms make them nearly impossible to afford to keep. On family farms, we did have animals as pets yes, I’m talking about old cows and goats-etc. Of course, there is killing. However, on a family farm this is done quickly and as humanely as is possible.
I agree that if humans didn’t create these issues with animals, the issues wouldn’t exist. This is why I continue to only purchase organic items. We the consumer do have choices.
There are plenty of heirloom varieties of fruits and veggies. I certainly will never eat inedible corn
In the case of this question, it sounds as though a family chose to become vegan. Maybe they didn’t educate themselves properly before enacting their choice. I hate to use articles to judge when someone’s baby is no longer.
Vegan doesn’t quite work for me. I need animal protein to avoid massive migraines My son has been mostly vegan for some time. He takes lots of supplements, including a vegan source of B12 twice daily.
@SpatzieLover I clicked on King Corn link…it was just..something. I wasn’t sure what. A spoof on corn syrup, is what it said…. ? It didn’t do anything but play banjo music. I wouldn’t eat corn that did nothing but play banjo music either! Gimme some rock and roll or I won’t eat it!
What is a“heirloom” fruit or veggie?
As to the question posted here….I have no problem whatsoever with vegans who hold strong beliefs or people who hold strong religious beliefs, but I DO have a problem with fools who let strong beliefs overcome their common sense and intelligence and helpless children die because of it. As @Simone_De_Beauvoir said, it’s not because they’re vegan, it’s because they’re idiots.
King Corn is a documentary on the inedible corn product of Iowa.
Heirloom =Not genetically modified. It’s about growing and eating the fruits & veggies of our ancestors. In some cases, families passed down seeds and we are now reaping the benefits.
I looked at your link…which sent me off into high fructose corn syrup, which sent me off into enzymes…in the couple of minutes I read (getting ready for bed) I couldn’t find anything that suggests it’s worse for you than sucrose (table sugar.) And anyone who way over- indulges in table sugar is up for diabetes too….But that’s all for now.
Anyway, from what else I saw in your link, they didn’t suggest the corn was not edible for humans. They’re saying that corn, due to what it is, has a huge variety of uses other than corn on the cob for the table. Just that more of it, than any other grain, can be used for other things, like cattle feed and ethanol. But it’s still the same corn that ends up on the grill (with butter and onions! Yum) But the corn that is grown today, harmless as it is, it is still a very, very different thing than its ancestral corn.
The Heirloom veggies may not be genetically modified (and nothing in your link suggested their corn was genetically modified either,) but after a hundred thousand years they are certainly modified, non-the-less. As modified as my dogs are from the original wolf, and my house cat from the original African cat.
So…what does it mean, exactly, when I buy “Heirloom” tomatoes from Walmart?
@Dutchess_III The corn is genetically modified. You can no longer eat it off the cob. It has an inedible layer over each kernel. The product literally rapes the ground of it’s nutrients. It is only edible with a lot of processing in corporate factories. GMO corn is used in processed food ingredients, including HFCS.
I’m off to ebay my belongings but will pick this up tomorrow if Fluther reminders are working ;)
I just didn’t see in your link where it was genetically modified. I’m sure corn is. I’m sure ALL veggies are, now a days….scary as that seems.
PS…are you from the Seattle area? That’s where my mom’s family (the dairy farmers) are from. They’re not genetically modified…they’re all Dutch. However, I, and all my cousins and stuff got genetically modified by the ‘Mericans so we’re only ½ Dutch. It gets even worse for my kids! : 0
@SpatzieLover I can eat corn off the cob, do it every summer. Where do you live that you have such weird corn?
@faye I was discussing genetically modified corn as seen in King Corn Not, field corn, or edible corn. @Dutchess_III Certainly not. Not all veggies are GMO’s. That is precisely why I buy/plant local and organic.
yes, we are Dutch/Germans in Wis
How did we go from neglectful, stupid parents to cows milk and inedible corn? :P
I think the majority of corn being grown in the US isn’t for eating as ‘corn’ but it’s not used in biofuel (thanks to government money incentives) and corn syrup (thanks to older government money incentives.)
That being said, this set of parents were neglectful and are paying the highest price possible for their ignorance and hubris. Instead of that stupid vegan publication using it as a very sad example/tale of warning, they wrote up a ridiculous defensive piece of the indefensible.
I agree with @ANef_is_Enuf, how could they not have noticed before the baby actually died that it was starving? Surely there are visable signs that a baby is suffering from malnutrition before it actually dies? I am no doctor though. This is what leads me to wonder if these parents were so wrapped up in personal beliefs to notice. I certainly don’t think they meant to kill their baby but they may have been blinded by their desire to live a certain lifestyle.
Like others on this thread, I am also wondering where the doctors were while this baby was suffering. I don’t know what the health system is like in France but I’m assuming that, because it is a fairly civilised country, there must be some kind of after care for mothers and young babies?!
Edit: I’ve just read the article that @SpatzieLover sent so yes, I now think the parents are largely to blame. They didn’t take the baby to hospital when the doctors noticed a problem at 9 months old. That shows that they let their beliefs rule over medical advice which leads me to believe that it wasn’t ignorance that killed this baby but a serious case of being stubborn about their beliefs.
@Leanne1986 Yeah and I feel those that pray their kids to death instead of taking them to a hospital deserve the same blame.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir Of course they do. Wasn’t there a recent news story where a muslim couple refused lifesaving medical treatment for their child because it contradicted what their religious beliefs were?
@Leanne1986 Don’t know. All I ever heard about are Christian parents doing this. So it’d be good to learn about other religions and this kind of process.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir Found it! It wasn’t because of religion as such but because of their faith in homeopatic remedies. Judging by what it says in this article their daughters suffering was so obvious and yet they still denied her medical treatment. Disgusting.
@Leanne1986 Oh my god, that tortured baby. Makes me cry.
That isn’t because they’re Muslim… (and where did it say they were??) but they were ‘homoeopaths’. Idiots.
Homoeopathy has nothing to do with the Muslim religion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the foolish father was educated by the hacks in England.
@cazzie If you read my last post you’ll see that I corrected myself and acknowledged that it wasn’t for religious reasons.
@Leanne1986 You had written it small. I thought it needed reiterating in normal font.
Please don’t lump all users of homeopathy into one category and make a stupid blanket statement. I resent the hell out of that. We use homeopathy to a certain extent, AND we’re Christian, but we don’t ignore medical advice and we do take our children to the doctor when they need to go.
@cazzie : ”...your placebo parade” What do you mean? Don’t define placebo,please, I know what that means.
I honestly didn’t know what you meant by that, @cazzie , a bunch of links doesn’t answer my question.
Edit to add: Never mind, I get that you were just being snarky at Chocolate. Another question: Really? That was necessary?
Yes, @cazzie, it was a mere coincidence that whenever I gave my son teething tablets he nearly instantly was soothed. Must’ve been the placebo effect on an infant.
Chamomile tea must be a crock then too, right?!
She asked me what I meant by my previous post. I wasn’t being snarky at her with my initial comments about those people in Australia. Come on now.
@SpatzieLover… yes. coincidence. (i bet he really liked the sugar pills) And I said nothing about chamomile tea.
I’m a bit amused that someone would cite YouTube Videos and Wikipedia to make a point about homeopathy. or anything else for that matter
@SpatzieLover I used teething pills and chamomile tea, as well. Thanks for posting the recall link; I still had some of those.
I’m so freaking sick of people saying homeopathy is nothing but placebo. Tell that to my kids who took homeopathic remedies for various things when they were babies, and they worked. Tell that to my dog who almost died until I gave her a homeopathic remedy. Tell that to my friend whose dog had Parvo and the vet said the dog was beyond treatment… until I gave that poor dog a homeopathic remedy. That dog is still alive 8 years later. Tell that to any child or animal who has been succesfully treated with homeopathy, and has no idea what “placebo” means. Placebo my fucking ass.
Any further derogatory remarks about users of homeopathy are unneccesary and ignorant. If it’s not something you choose to do, that’s your call, but don’t make fun of people who use homeopathy or insinuate that they are stupid or neglectful of their children. The parents who use homeopathy instead of getting their children urgent medical care are stupid. Not every person or parent who uses homeopathy is like that. So get your facts straight before you make ignorant statements.
/end rant
I find it hypocritical of the parents that in the article that “Nine days after they returned from India, Thomas and Manju Sam finally took Gloria to hospital for an eye infection they thought was conjunctivitis…” Didn’t they believe there was a homeopathic cure for conjunctivitis?
Ya’ll can cat fight all you want, but I don’t believe there is a single vegan or homeopath who lives here on Fluther who would have forgone medical treatment, or ignored symptoms, in either of the cases that have been brought up.
@Dutchess_III So true. The parents this thread is about were completely stupid and most definitely neglectful in the care of their child. I seriously doubt any of us jellies would do something like that, whether we be vegan, carnivorous, Christian, devil worshipper, atheist, completely allopathic, completely homeopathic, or anything inbetween.
Exactly @WillWorkForChocolate. The baby’s death had nothing to do with the fact that the parents were vegan and everything to do with the fact that they were ignorant. I kind of wish I could hear the excuse they gave for feeding an almost 1-year-old nothing but milk, of any kind.
Precisely. You can’t blame the veganism itself, because that would be ridiculous. I don’t agree 100% with the healthiness of pure veganism, based on the vegans I know personally, but if that’s what floats your boat, it’s your body. What you can blame is the parents’ ignorance of feeding an almost year old child nothing but milk. I’m an advocate of breastmilk, but I don’t think a child of that age should only be breastfed. That child needed nutrients from more foods that she obviously wasn’t getting from her mother.
I agree. You know, I was trying to find the article for a coworker of mine, and stumbled upon this (actually Aster posted the same article above, in the first response.) That one just dropped my jaw. It’s apparently written by a rabid pro-vegan and he actually insinuates that if a house was full of junk food (specify McDonald’s crap here) and paramedics were called to the home of an 11 month old who had collapsed, no one would think twice about it! From the article “Just so you’re getting all this straight, keep in mind that if the ambulance had shown up and found a dead baby in a family whose cupboards were stuffed full of junk food and fast food…that would not have seemed suspicious at all…it is only the fact that the parents were vegans that the police were called.” Oh please. Like if an 11 month old baby of junk food parents died for no apparent reason, nobody would bat an eye. That kind of BS isn’t a good advocate for anyone. People like that just turn others away….like a “Christian” who goes door to door preaching. It just turns people off of what-ever concept or idealogy all together.
Yeah, that’s why I dislike other Christians (or whatever religion they’re promoting) saying we should be “knocking on doors and winning people to God” (or Allah, or whoever). You know what? In my experience, the more you bash someone over the head with God and annoy them, the less likely they are to even think about what you’re saying! It’s crazy!
Yep yep yep! And to pretend like those parents were treated any differently, or discriminated against because they were vegan? Self defeating.
are we all alone on Fluther?
Yes, I went on a rampage and killed everyone. Sorry.
damn it! you did that on wis.dm too and look what happened! Hey..they’re telling a line by line psycho story of some kind over there >>>> about some guy named Frank. These people are CRAZY!
I can’t control myself. Perhaps I need medication… or maybe just a nice chianti and the liver of a pretty therapist…
The LIVER? Of anyone! What?! How about a mint julip on a second floor deck of a home that didn’t burn down!
Of course. It’s called gross negligence.
Look at everyone up there, trampling all over everyone else’s personal beliefs/eating habits/medication choices, and said persons getting offended and lashing out, and so on and so on. It looks so silly.
i loved how she used a link to a recall notice of tainted and harmful homeopathy pills to prove a point that they were more than just sugar pills and admitted giving said tainted pills to her infant. How can I argue with that logic?
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
