Vegans kill baby
 

http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/r...?ArtNum=185948

Some people think the sentence is too harsh, what do you think?

The title should actually be "dumbasses kill baby." It has nothing to do with their being vegan. Many babies drink soy-based formula and are fine.

I'm guessing she didn't/couldn't breast feed. This reminded me of a Law & Order episode.

Did they get off in the episode?

In addition to whatever punishment they receive, the parents should be forced to eat hamburgers and steaks for the rest of their lives.

The didn't realize that their 3 1/2 POUND, six week old baby was in trouble until minutes before he died?? Bull.

What I don't get is why they didn't use SOY formula instead of soymilk. It's still vegan, and even if it's not a)so what, it's a baby, it doesn't have a choice and b) even if it's not mainstream I'm pretty sure you could find some vegan infant formula SOMEWHERE. (A 3 second google search brought me to several sites.) Or better yet, since they're into everything natural, why not breastfeed?

I think they deserve what they got.

Oh, and they should be shot for naming their baby "Crown" anyway - and this coming from an ASA.

I doubt many prisons serve vegan meals - and being vegan is not a "right", so I doubt they could get an exception.

I can't remember but I don't think they did. It was a little different. The girl didn't feed their baby formula because the breast-feeding consultant had warned her of "nipple confusion." Basically they could have called it "the La Leche League is evil." It wasn't very well balanced and I have a hard time believing anyone, no matter how big a breastfeeding advocate they are, would have let someone they were counseling get to that point.

Oh, and you'd think that no mom would be that stupid and unable to stand up for herself as the one in the episode was, but apparently I'm wrong.

You would be surprised what types of meals are served in prison. I'm sure they'll be able to get vegan meals.

Please don't ask me how I know this. :p

Yipes! I missed that part. At least their last name wasn't Royal.

Not harsh at all - I'm sure even a home birth would be attended by a midwife who should have checked up on both mother and baby the first week to insure that the nursing relationship was moving along as it should And I agree, there are soy formulas of artificial baby milk out there and most vegans I know would definitely nurse a baby before feeding it artificial baby milk.

Refer to: http://www.andrews.edu/NUFS/Vegan%20Children.html

Bro, this is off topic, but since when have you been "Super Moderator?" Am I slow in noticing that?

I think around a week. You are not slow at all :)

PenguinTrax is one too. :)

Are there any others or is it just James and PT?

It is possible the mother was not consuming enough calories (esp. good fat and proteins) in her vegan diet to produce an adequate supply of breastmilk. Even some soy formulas have animal product ingredients, so if they were extremely strict vegans, that might not have been an option in their mind.

Still, you would hope even moderately intelligent parents would be able to tell their baby was starving.

That poor baby. :(

Those parents should be forced to eat meat at every meal until they die! :D

I can't believe they were so stupid to think that their 3 1/2 pound baby "wasn't in trouble.":rolleyes:

Some people just should not have kids...

Y'all don't bash the vegans... ;) It's probably has more to do with who ought not be breeding in the first place...

If the mother was so au naturel, how come she didn't breast feed the child? Or at least pay for a "wet nurse"?

I'm been trying to follow this story in the Atlanta paper and more developed info. is hard to come by.

I want to get a real sense of who these people are and what happened.

I tend to think of vegans as nutritionally aware because you sort of have to be to stay alive and healthy on a vegan diet. But I don't think of people who would let a baby starve to death as being nutritionally aware, obviously.

I don't tend to think prosecutors want to charge people with murder when their children die of malnutrition, especially when they were apparently trying to feed them. Additionally, as I remember, there wasn't a big flurry of media attention at the time of the death; there's nobody to send a message to with this conviction; as far as I can tell, nobody knew it had happened until the conviction. To seek justice for the baby, it's hard to figure out why the charge is murder rather than some other form of manslaughter or negligent homicide or something. And there's nothing illuminating in the news coverage as far as I can see.

Anyone?

this kind of reminds me of an episode of house - same deal, parents were vegans, the kid was malnourished, and they called child protective services, only to discover that the parents were working with a nutritionist to ensure that the baby got the right amount of calories because of the vegan diet. the baby had a condition that prevented the absorption of nutrients as i remember.

but really, i mean 3.5 pounds? i don't care what kind of diet your baby is on, you'd have to be willfully ignoring it at that point, because i'm guessing that's less than what the baby weighed when it went home.

if they were so adamant about the vegan diet, they should have worked with someone to ensure that the baby was well nourished, this is negligent, vegan or not.

Some women who have given birth cannot lactate enough for the health of the child, essentially causing malnourishment. If the mother fails to consume enough proper nutrients, she will have a problem passing them on, as well as immunity and several other things beyond our scientific comprehension now, that without out it, the child can get sick.

Mouse pups literally die within 24 hours of birth when you do not feed the mother water and that's if the mother doesn't eat the pups.

Maybe it takes 3 months for a human baby to die from lack of nutrition but in this case, the parents won't eat the baby...

Don't underestimate the cult mentality of the La Leche League (aka the leaky league).I nursed all 4 of my children. However, before giving birth to #2, I had a breast cancer scare. My doctors and I agreed I would nurse for 6 weeks before going for further testing, etc. LLL big-muckey muck gave me HELL because I thought it would be better for my daughter to have a live mother and be fed formula than be nursed until I dropped dead. Nope - I was evil for wanting to live. (FYI - I'm fine)

I had alot of trouble BFing with my daughter and she was losing weight rapidly. My ped. told me to supplement BFing with formula, and although, I didn't want to do it, I also didn't want her to die.

However, when I contacted the lactation specialist at the hospital for some extra advice, she treated me like I was a child-abuser for giving my baby formula twice a day. :mad: The LLL is maniacal in my opinion.

I think the parents had good intentions initially, but did not do the proper research before they had the child. I understand people are entitled to eat what they please, but when you are endangering the life of your child (or anyone else for that matter) it is time to reevaluate the situation.

^^^
Most folks uneducated in the medical arts fail to recognize obvious symptoms of pain in those who are unable to speak, namely babies that just cry.

As far as a mother unable to breast feed and choosing formula vs. human breast milk, I could care less what someone chooses, just as long as at minimum, the baby is soiling ~5 diapers per day, that assures me there is the required nutrition.

As for vegans, they limit their food intake because they believe all things with a face is improper for them to eat. I know, I use to be one. But I do not have a child to worry about feeding properly, nor to I force that upon someone.

But, there is something to be said about the lack of B complex vitamins and psychoneuroses. That's is a Cecil's and Harrison's Medical Textbook example of psychosis... It's standard... Even Stedman's Dictionary states it.

The lactation consultant I talked to told me "Think of giving formula to yorur baby as giving them alcohol" Um...no, nutjob. Oh, and the fact that I was pumping instead of straight from the breast was evil as well. Whatever.:rolleyes:

I thought that episode of House was the one with the vegans who were feeding their baby a raw diet and caused pneumonia and malnutrition.

The lack of nutrients in this couple's diet have killed some braincells if they think a 3.5lb baby is healthy and normal.

I think the Vegan baby had something else wrong with it. He assumed they were malnourishing it, but a family member was a nutritionist and made the baby was being adequately fed. I dont' remember why the baby was sick though.

Apparently a distant family member is vegan/veg, and they were feeding their son nothing but tofu, rice and potatoes and the boy wasn't talking/walking properly at age 2.

You know melamine has been stuck into human foodstuffs... Including vegan options...

i am one of those people that when these new lifestyle things come up, i like to do research, i.e. veganism, kabballah, "green" occasions, and most recently scientology.

my sister is a vegetarian, so when i looked up becoming vegan for her, i realized it is seriously (for people not raised that way) a lifestyle change. i also noticed that it can be a bit restrictive for those people as well (not passing judgement). it is no joke, being a vegan. it requires research and concentration and discipline, or else you can get ill.

these people? umm, not too sure they did their research. they would have known what to do and what not to do. if you are going to introduce a lifestyle this different to an infant, you cross every t, and dot every i. and now they blamed their lack of preparation on a lifestyle that works wonders for people and is a respected choice.

i feel the punishment was a bit extreme, unless there was more damning evidence that these people straight out killed the child intentionally. i feel it was severe neglect, and 20 or 30 years or so would straighten them out.

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?