General Chat

A 1 year old baby in Australia has been left with cerebral palsy due to severe malnutrition. The article made a big thing over the fact that the parents aged 32 and 34 were vegan but their personal dietary choice had nothing to do with it as we all know vegans eat fruit and veg. They fed the then baby (now a 3 year old toddler) on coconut water and powdered oats.

Rather than seek medical help for their daughter when she couldn’t keep food down and was unable to support herself they went onto online vegan forums. The father eventually took the baby to hospital where she was found to 6.6kg around 14 and a half pounds. The parents have since separated and the now three year old toddler lives with her mother.

I weighed 14lbs at a year old but I have a hiatus hernia meaning my stomach is in wrong place and makes it harder to keep food down. I was given a varied diet though where as what these parents did was out and out neglect.

The malnutrition won’t have caused the cerebral palsy but children with cerebral palsy

can suffer from malnutrition. First sentence is a bit misleading.

I find it astonishing that vegans didn't breast feed their baby :-S

I’m no medical expert however the article went on to say that the severe malnutrition caused brain damage, open wounds and internal bleeding. The baby was kept alive on a life support machine.

Very sad :-(

I agree Maggie.

Like many articles a lot of questions unanswered

I used to live close to the Kent coalfields. My youngest was born around the time of the 84/85 strikes.
The hospital checked all mothers for a deficiency caused by malnutrition whichcaused ligamrnt problems in the mothers.
I happened to mention this to the health visitor in the cosy Home Counties a few months later and I don’t think she believed me.

It's strange how things are 'conveniently forgotten, isn't it?

Bearing in mind NICE want's to monitor pregnant women for alcohol consumption,
I'm not sure health visitors would believe me if I told them my doctor told me to drink a pint of stout a day during my first pregnancy, as I was, apparently, underweight! (1980)

I was an agricultural worker, and was 6 and a half stone of pure muscle.
I was 6 stone before I became an ag lab!

Just like to add, I've put on a stone a decade since :-(

I do understand their reluctance to turn to conventional medicine up to a point. I have always tried to avoid conventional medicine, particularly because of animal testing, so did not see a doctor for thirty odd years.

When I did , the doctor went white and had to sit down!

Poor little mite

My partner's stepmother is vegan and her son's were diagnosed with malnutrition in their teens! One in particular has on going problems with weak bones and has had several ops on his joints.

My son and his fiancee are now vegans and have been for some years but Nat's son has "normal" meals as well as vegan food and eats everyday food at his father's home where he stays often.

It worries me that my son isn't eating well.

Lizxx

That’s sad Liz. It is possible to eat well on a vegan diet but it does take a lot more thought when it comes to meals. What these parents fed this baby though wasn’t a vegan diet. All babies vegan or not unless they have any major issues start weaning around 4-6 months old and with all my nieces that involved vegetables and fruits. My eldest niece Ellie is now 4 years old and loves humous and pitta bread, olives, curry’s, fajitas, enchiladas, Sunday roast and chicken and chips.

These parents didn’t start weaning correctly as even vegan children eat fruit and veg. This is neglect on the part of the parents potentially caused by lack of knowledge.

What surprised me about this story was that it seems Australia (or that particular state at least) seems to have done away with baby clinics as we used to call them.

We had the same thing there for my second child as we did in the UK for my first one.

You trotted along to the fortnightly Baby Clinic and chatted with the Sister while she weighed and checked the baby. She would ask if you had any problems and give advice and suggestions on things to try etc. If you missed a couple of fortnightly visits while the child was still a baby, the sister would be calling around to see what was up.

This went on throughout the first year. I felt I had hit gold with both Sisters as they were forward-thinking in every respect and were very easy to chat with.

You were lucky, JoyLouise.
With my first, (6lb 4ozs at birth) I was told off in the clinic for discretely breast feeding my baby.
I was told 'This isn't the place for that'!
Then I was told (despite the baby only being breast fed), that she was 'overweight'.
I stopped going soon after that.

With my second, who was a week premature and weighed just over 5lbs 6oz at birth, every time I went, they'd say 'Oh, the low birth weight baby'.
Every...single....time.
Even when she exceeded the weight of her sister, who, at the same age, they had accused of being overweight!
I pointed out their contradiction, and never went again.

I'm not sure why they had this attitude.
It could be because I was listed as an agricultural worker, and they assumed I had the brain of a chicken.
What they didn't know, was that I had trained as a nursery nurse and knew damn well it's virtually impossible for a solely breast fed baby to be overweight, I also knew that, although 5lbs 6oz is a low birth weight, it's not dangerously low, and she was healthy - otherwise why was I allowed home with her after 4 days?

I was 6 weeks premature, and weighed 4lbs 7ozs. I wasn't allowed home for 6 weeks, but part of that was the regime of the time.

Just remembered another thing that really peed me off.
When I first came home with baby No. 2, a health visitor came around.
I was in the middle of feeding the baby, when the health visitor wanted to check if I had enough milk. I said, 'Yes, thank you' - but she wanted to check.
I took the baby off, Health visitor tweaked my nipple and milk shot across the room and all over the wallpaper on the wall opposite! It didn't come off :-| :-|

My elder daughter now does a similar thing, as a health visitor, and is very careful not to commit this 'crime' :-D

One of the African students at the local college was Koi-Koi (used to be called Hottentot and are little, pygmies I think) and she had a baby while she was here.

As far as she was concerned, she had delivered a big, bouncing four pounder but it was taken off to an incubator anyway because it was underweight, as it probably would have been for somebody who was not Koi-Koi.

Your experience sounds a bit like mine, Maggie.

Elder son was born in a London hospital and weighed 8¾lbs. I breast fed him for ages and he put on lots of weight one week and none the next. The average was about right and at 6 months he was double his birth weight.

I went to the clinic weekly and the nurse used to tell me one week that he was gaining weight too fast and to cut down on his food and the following week that he wasn't gaining enough weight and I should start weaning him!! :-S

As he was obviously thriving I ignored the advice and stopped going. Nobody came to check up on me and all was well.

There was nothing wrong with me, (though many may say otherwise :-D) at birth, Sharron, just early and small. I was in an incubator, but nothing was attached to me.

I'd have been a Leo if I'd been born on time.
I wonder what astrologists do in a situation like that - bearing in mind Cancerians and Leos are totally different.
Actually, eldest was a week late - she's a Leo, but would have been a Cancerian if born on time.
Youngest is Aquarius, and would have still been Aquarius if born on time.

I was very lucky with the sisters in both countries, Maggie. Also, their training seemed to have been the same even though there were thousands of miles and eight years between children.

The birth weights of my two varied by three ounces - around 8 pounds for both. They were very different as far as feeding was concerned.

The first did not like the normal feeding methods and at six weeks, after a couple of weeks of no weight gain, the sister advised mixing a little baby cereal in one of his feeds and to use the spoon and try him with a baby cup without the usual lid with lip - a normal cup in every respect. Interesting that the sister said to use a spoon to feed him though. Each week I replaced a milk meal with a cereal meal and by the time he was about ten to twelve weeks old he was ready to try more variety. He took to it with gusto but still would not actually drink any kind of milk - only water. He also used the spoon himself while he was still very young.

The second loved milk so I did not try solid food until she was about three months old - using the same routine as I had done with the first, Here again, this child took to the spoon immediately. The sister there asked me whether I had tried her with cooled tea while she was only about three months old. No - she was happy as she was, with water in between in very hot weather (35 degs and over). Anyway, I never drank tea myself.

Once they could sit in a high chair, they ate at the table when I ate so they got into a three-meals-a-day and a drink at bedtime very quickly.

I knew nothing about childcare before I had my first and did not bother with any books as friends had done. I was very happy to rely on the sister's advice which I felt was really sound in both cases. It worked for me.