How incredibly sad.

Anyone who has done even a miniscule amount of research on newborn nutrition knows that they require a very special diet (preferably breast milk, but even formula gives the basics), and that newborns certainly should not be given juice of any sort. It takes up too much space in their tiny bellies without giving them any real nutritional value in return.

Even vegan websites advise families to use breast milk whenever possible or soy formula when not. (I'm guessing that most reasonable vegans realize that a tiny bit of compromise is necessary to keep their child alive.) See the following articles from a quick Google search:

http://www.vegfamily.com/melanie-wilson/tip3.htm

http://www.vegfamily.com/dietician/0604b.htm

From this vegan site: http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/pregnancy.htm

Article about a baby from Queens - who luckily survived her malnourishment, but her parents were convicted of first degree assault:


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...57C0A9659C8B63


If the parents in this recent case had done even a miniscule amount of research, they could have easily realized that what they were doing was endangering their child. I have no problem at all with the murder conviction - if your child loses that much weight, you should seek medical care, and to do anything less is shameful. A 3 1/2 pound 6 week old infant (unless he/she was born weighing even less than that) is simply not normal - any idiot should realize that.

"Attorneys representing Sanders and Thomas told jurors the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to their vegan lifestyle."

WHAT?!

If "adhering to their vegan lifestyle" means starving their baby, THEN MAYBE THEY SHOULD CHANGE THEIR LIFESTYLE.

What if Ted Bundy was like, "ey everybody, I'm adhering to my murderous lifestyle, it's okay!"

In this case, better example:

Jeffery Dahmer: "I'm just adhering to my diet.";)

Ew. I'm going to go be sick now. Thanks.

Apparently, in court there was other evidence of neglect in addition to the vegan diet. I apologize it this was already linked or posted, but the prosecutor also made the claim that the child had a bed sore from being left to lie in his crib in dirty diaper for too long. So while the press is making it all about the inadequacy of the vegan diet, it was a general neglect case too. Had I been a juror, I might try to believe that you didn’t know how bad off your baby was and that you didn’t know he was starving to death. At the point where there’s a strong general case of neglect of which starvation is a part, I’m going to quit trying.

I think the only way for a baby to get a sick as it did, and die of starvation, would require other neglect. Any attentive parent would have at least noticed that something was wrong.

This is such a sad story. I think it has less to do with the fact that they're vegan than the fact that they are just negligent and irresponsible.

I keep reading the thread title and thinking people from Las Vegas killed a baby...

My husband just told me the baby had hyperproteinemia a very bad condition to have as an infant and think that proper nutrition is going on... It means too much protein in the blood. Usually bad proteins because they are getting degraded that can cause clotting and move into the heart or brain.

I'm sorry that I don't know more about what you mean, AKAMonet. Do you mean that the baby had this condition and it made nutrition harder for him to get out of any food OR as a result of inadequate nutrition, his body was breaking down his own tissue leading to too much protein in the blood?

I guess I wonder if it's more evidence that they neglected his need generally or if it's a reason that even though they were feeding him, he ended up dead?

Well, from what I understand about human pediatric development, it may be this poor child's organs were headed into failure--kidney, heart and eventually stroke. Generally, when organs fail, they dump proteins in to anywhere they can, then then the tissue becomes necrotic. That's why cancer or tumors are so bad, because that is what exactly they do to the body.

To, having too much protein in the blood, for a 3 month old is a very dangerous thing.

It sounds like they were unaware of his need generally. Babies just cry. They don't have distinguishable cries until 2-3 months of age. At the same time they don't make distinctions on who they are looking at until ~2 months of age--roughly the same time they try lifting their heads...

Most of the "mother books" somewhat describe these processes in terminology. But one never knows exactly what happens until she has her own baby... But generally, this his how it works.

The animals that are able to survive the first 6 months of life, will continue to reproduce. For humans it is the 1 year or so.

Even though they fed him, it was not enough nutrition. The child was probably nutient deficient if the mother kept her prenatal vegan lifestyle. So the child may have asymptomatic had birth defects.

These parents will have to live with their choices for the rest of their lives...