Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/11/hardcore-vegan-baby-nearly-die.html
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Wait wait wait.
I can understand if cows’ milk is the nectar of oppression. But can’t vegan babies have mother’s milk? Or is that oppression too? All babies oppress their parents. They are politically reactionary and greedy too.
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I’m not sure it was the baby that was hardcore vegan.
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Some parents seem to forget that a human being at this stage of development, while compiled from about 99.99% similar code as their parents, is executing that code waaaaaay differently. Some of it is commented out for now, while other parts are running on the equivalent of a server array. Respect the human genome and feed your infant what it needs, FFS.
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Sounds like a mitral valve regurgitation that went south because of heart muscle disease. They’re super common and often harmless. I have had one since birth with no issues except for rare occasional palpitations. For it to get this bad… that’s some serious neglect. I can see someone wanting to raise a child vegan and it’s not de facto child abuse if they’re getting the balance of nutrition that they need (though there is some question of whether or not breast milk is the only truly balanced diet for babies, IANAD), but if you can’t breast feed, then you have to watch the baby’s weight. If you’re kid isn’t gaining weight and getting listless and you’re not taking them to the doctor, then you suck as a parent. And I’m convinced they didn’t take him to the doctor except maybe at the last minute, because no doctor would put up with that shit.
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“So to you, all the kids all across the land / there’s no need to argue / hardcore vegetarian parents just don’t understand.” ~ DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh [Milk] Prince
It’s balanced, as long as they suckle both sides.*
- This joke provided by Dad Jokes™.
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You know, my kids might have been mostly accidentally vegan for a good long time-
They were breast fed (exclusively) for the first six months before we started to supplement- but the supplements were all veggie and grains, anyway… I don’t think we introduced them to any animal protein for a while. Gets hard to remember, though.
Still: feed your fucking kid. Know what kids like? Avocado. Give them as much as they want. Rice, too. And bananas. And and and.
I’m not sure the “vegan” part was the real problem here- sounds like there was something seriously wrong with the parents.
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It sounds like a case of horrible parents who happened to be vegans.
My kid was breast fed for about a year. Now we did have things like cheese or maybe chicken at 14 months - I think… But by far it was grains and fruits and vegetables. I am not sure how trying to be vegan would end up with such a malnourished kid.
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I’m assuming the mother couldn’t breastfeed or had stopped doing so. I’ve read about a number of similar cases with vegan parents feeding their infant soy/rice-milk, fruit juice, etc. because they were idiots. But I’ve also read about vegans whose children were starving on a diet of pure breastmilk because the mother was malnourished by her own poor diet/health problems and they rejected doctor’s advice on how to deal with the situation on principle.
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Being vegan isn’t my jam, but I totally understand people wanting to go that route.
That said:
Know what you are doing. Read. Listen. And that’s just for taking care of yourself. When you’re the person “caring” for a child, the burden is that much more on you. If you don’t know what you’re doing and let yourself get anemic, that’s not great. If you don’t know what you’re doing and let your kid get anemic, that might kill it.
Be a responsible human being.
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Yes. I’ve read stories of vegans who began experiencing vitamin deficiencies. They consulted doctors and, in most cases, their doctors were able to find solutions that allowed the individuals to continue as vegans.
But let me emphasize: these were adults who made their own choice to go vegan, consulted doctors, and listened to the advice they were given. They did not make the choice for someone else who depended on them.
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We knew a couple that was vegan and they did attempt to raise their first but they were also very good about seeing the dr. and when the dr. was concerned - I forget the exact issue offhand, it was some years ago - they basically switched to a diet for the kid that required no killing of land animals… So some dairy, some eggs and some fish.
We know another couple that adopted a kid when he was 1 and he’s 8 now. He’s pretty much vegetarian at this point - but not strict. He has a hotdog with dad at the ballgame, etc…
Otherwise, I’m stayin’ out of this one. 
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That should be obvious. But putting ‘vegan’ in the headline is a surefire way to get internet dorks piling into the comments making jokes about how denying a baby bacon is child abuse or whatever.
I’ve known multiple vegan parents, who have raised healthy babies. One of which was the hugest fucking baby I’ve ever seen (top 95th percentile for length and weight). The parents in this story were just neglectful idiots. But when an omnivore fills their kids baby bottle with Mountain Dew or whatever, we don’t get headlines that say “Omnivorous family feeds their kid shit.”
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I’ve read stories of omnivores who began experiencing vitamin
deficiencies. They consulted doctors and, in most cases, their doctors
were able to find solutions that allowed the individuals to continue eating animal products.
But let me emphasize: these were adults who made their own choice to
eat animal products, consulted doctors, and listened to the advice they were given.
They did not make the choice for someone else who depended on them.
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Have you read the previous comments?
Just asking.
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This headline should have read “Malnourished baby of hardcore stupid parents nearly dies”. First, the baby is no more hardcore vegan than it is “hardcore” diapered. It had no choice in the matter.
But more substantially, my son was essentially vegan until age 2. My wife had difficulty breast feeding and he was mostly allergic to milk. He was soy-based formula-fed. We introduced protein through lentils, soy, chick peas, nuts, and other kinds of beans. Well, ok, he had eggs too so he wasn’t really vegan. We did this all under a pediatrician’s supervision and he was reasonably healthy.
My point is that now, 6 years later, he is a perfectly healthy boy. It wasn’t the veganism that caused the baby in the article to be malnourished, but it was the fact that the parents were just plain stupid. Please don’t blame it on being vegan.
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Mountain Dew, come on…everyone knows babies love hard apple cider. Plus it makes nap time easy!
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Dr. Pepper babies are the best… and tend to be quite large.
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