14-Month-Old Hospitalized After Being Kept On Strict Vegan Diet Without Supplements

Parents are faced with many difficult decisions. Even choices that may sound beneficial can have devastating effects in the long run.

Two Italian parents, for example, were recently arrested by police in Milan. These parents thought they were making a good decision for their child when they chose to keep him to a strict vegan diet, just as they held themselves to a strict vegan diet.

But doctors thought otherwise. When police brought in the 14-month-old, they were shocked at the child’s poor state of health.

The child, who’s name has not been released for privacy reasons, weighed only 11 pounds. That’s the weight of a healthy 3-month-old baby. According to LiveStrong, the healthy weight of a 14-month-old baby is anywhere from 17-25 pounds.

Doctors took blood and found because of this child’s vegan diet, he was severely undernourished. But it gets worse. He also had calcium levels barely adequate to survive and was suffering from a congenital heart condition, aggravated by his low calcium levels, which required emergency surgery.

Luca Bernardo, director of paediatrics at the hospital, said:

“This forces us to reflect on uncommon feeding regimes, even if in this case it was complicated by a cardiac malformation.”

“It is not a problem to choose different or unusual kinds of nutrition and we certainly do not want to enter into a discussion of the merits of the decision. But since birth, the baby should have had support in this case with calcium and iron.”

According to the child’s grandparents, his mother and father had been holding him to a strict vegan diet without any dietary supplements. They are fighting for custody currently and an Italian court will make this decision in time.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time a child has been hospitalized in Italy due to keeping a vegan diet. In the past 18 months alone, five children have been hospitalized for malnutrition.

Last year, an Italian court ordered a mother to cook meat for her 11-month-old after the father and ex-husband complained about the state of the child’s health.

And in 2007, an Atlanta couple was sentenced to life in prison after their 6-week-old child died as a result of being fed nothing but soy milk and apple juice.

And while being a vegan is certainly not a bad thing (in fact it can be quite beneficial), make sure you speak with a doctor before making any dietary decisions that could negatively affect your child.

What’s your take on these parents and their alternative ways? Are you a vegan raising your child on a strict diet? Tell us your thoughts in the comments and please SHARE with a parent in your own life.

[Featured Image: rSnapshotPhotos via ShutterStock]

14-Month-Old Hospitalized After Being Kept On Strict Vegan Diet Without Supplements is an article from: LifeDaily