Savvy Vegetarian Comments on French Vegan Baby Death
French Vegan parents’ negligence, dietary deficiences, cause baby’s death. Savvy Vegetarian sad & mad, comments on tragedy:
French vegan couple get five-year sentence for causing baby’s death Apr 2, 2011, 10:06 GMT
Paris - A French court has sentenced a vegan couple to five years in prison after finding them guilty of causing the death of their baby through their unbalanced diet and their failure to seek medical treatment when she fell sick.
Joel and Sergine Le Moaligou’s 11-month-old daughter Louise died on March 25, 2008 at their home in the village of Saint-Maulvis, near the northern city of Amiens.
A post-mortem found the infant, who was fed exclusively with breast milk, was deficient in vitamins A and B12 as a result of her parents ‘dietary imbalance.’ The deficiencies were found to have increased her risk of infection.
Joel and Sergine Le Moaligou were accused of further negligence by refusing to seek medical assistance when she contracted bronchitis. Instead of taking her to hospital the couple tried to treat her with cabbage and clay poultices and massages with camphor and garlic oil.
When her condition deteriorated the couple called the ambulance service but Louise had already died by the time help arrived. Shocked by her condition - the child weighed 5.7 kilos at the time of her death, against an average of 8 kilos for her age - the ambulance service called the police.
Late Friday a court in Amiens handed the couple a five-year sentence, half of which was suspended. Given the time they have already spent in custody, the couple may avoid any jail time. The prosecution had asked for a 10-year custodial sentence.
The court also partly withdrew the couple’s authority over their other daughter, Elodie, aged 12. Decisions relating to her schooling and health have been entrusted to social services.
In pleading for leniency the couple’s lawyer had argued that Louise’s parents had caused their daughter’s death by being ‘overly protective’ and that the loss of their child was a sentence, which they would live with ‘for life.’
Savvy Vegetarian Sad & Mad Comments:
I feel badly for the parents. It could be that they deliberately starved their child, but I doubt it. They made horrendous mistakes, they may have been isolated and deluded - although they surely acted out of love and a desire to do what they felt was best for their baby.
Besides losing their child through their own actions (the biggest nightmare a parent can experience), the couple have been in jail for 3 years, and they essentially lost custody of their older child. I’d say they’ve been punished severely already, and their lives are ruined.
The mistakes they made according to this news story: Ignorance about vegan nutrition, breastfeeding exclusively beyond 6 months, not seeking help or changing course when the baby wasn’t thriving, not seeking medical attention for a serious illness. Those are the kind of mistakes we all are capable of making in the right circumstances.
However, as my daughter pointed out: You don’t feed your child a non-traditional diet without doing the research. I know quite a few vegetarian and vegan moms who have born and nursed big, healthy, thriving babies. But those Moms grew up vegetarian, they were knowledgeable about vegan nutrition, and about breastfeeding. They took supplements, they consulted doctors, midwives, nutritionists, and other moms in caring for their babies.
It’s possible that this couple were more harshly judged because they were vegan than they would have been if they ate meat. Then again, this might not have happened if they weren’t vegan.
What’s frustrating and maddening is that this extreme example of vegans who were ignorant, fanatical, and negligent is applied to all vegans. All vegan parents come under suspicion, even though it generally isn’t deserved.
Lessons for Vegans to Take Away from This Sad Story
1. As we’ve seen in this cautionary tale, malnutrition can have serious consequences. Being vegan isn’t just a matter of dropping the animal products from a typical meat based diet. It’s easy for vegans to feel superior no matter what they eat, because they aren’t committing the sin of eating animals. That’s a dangerous assumption.
2. Being vegan may improve your health and strengthen your immune system over time. It doesn’t automatically make you immune to any disease or illness. Yes, explore alternative health. But consult a qualified health professional for serious illness or infections, and take the drugs! If you or your loved one isn’t getting better, get better help.
3. Make sure to include a wide range of fresh whole foods (whole grains, legumes, tofu & tempeh, nuts & seeds, lots of vegetables & fruit) in your diet. And learn to cook for yourself - it’s the only way to truly be in charge of your diet.
4. Become an expert on vegan nutrition, keep an open mind, and continuously update your knowledge. If vegans are going to educate and lead by example, they have to make sure that they are clearly healthy, happy and energetic, and able to talk sensibly and easily about vegan nutrition.
5. Get annual blood tests for Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D, iron and other deficiencies. A large percentage of all people in North America (30 - 50%), meat eaters included, have Vitamin B12 and Vitamin D deficiencies. Take B12 and Vitamin D supplements, and a one-a-day general supplement as well. That’s the best insurance that you’re getting all the nutrients your body needs.
6. Humans are social beings, so integrate your vegan lifestyle with main stream society as much as you can. Maintain good relationships, and stay connected, with your non-vegan friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors, in the interest of mutual tolerance and support. Focus on common interests, not differences.
Tags: baby death, dietary imbalance, French vegan couple, negligence, vegan, vegan baby, vegan diet, vitamin deficiencies
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I think that neglect is the correct term for what happened in this case. The source of the neglect was a lack of being properly informed and connecting as necessary with specialized authority in order to best meet the needs of the child. Relationships with assorted authorities 9both medical and alternative, as well as parenting groups, etc.) and diligence in meeting scheduled check-ups and appointments with various knowledgeable sources could have sent up warning flags much earlier, potentially averting this horrible outcome. In an age where lifestyle is choice, ignorance can be tantamount to murder. With such freedoms come increased responsibility. Accountability entails constant updating of one’s knowledge and affirmation of current methods and future plans as they apply directly to our dependents. If such due considerations are not taken - whether one is vegan, following a paleolithic diet, or severely unhealthy in their eating habits - then parents risk being charged with neglect.
Wow! This is an injustice. Cleary the baby died of bronchitis, which MAY have been brought on by poor vitamin metabolism in mom’s breast milk ( a very rare health issue within the moms inability to make complete breast milk). Many babies die of bronchitis regardless of diet and especially without medical help! Many women breastfeed baby exclusively for well over a year. Your body will take what is needed and give it to the baby. Where this couple DID screw up was not taking the baby to hospital when she had bronchitis.
Hi Martha, great insights and observations! So true! Thank you!
Whoa, there’s some judgemental comments here! Do any of you truly believe they wanted their child to die? Do you believe it’s ever a (court) case for the MILLIONS of parents who feed their kids junk all the time, and have sick kids (and yeah, possibly dead too)as a result?
I think the parents made a terrible mistake, and are surely hard enough on themselves. If they had really been so neglectful, where was the help for the 12 year old child, who likely followed a similar diet?
And what do you think babies ate in the millions of years of our evolution? Probably breastmilk, exclusively for the first year, and continued for the first few years (with food added in).
It’s quick for us, as parents, to want to twist this case somehow, to reassure ourselves “That could never happen to me.” But remember, there is no parenting manual, and what we do today our kids will laugh (and be horrified!) with in the future. Hopefully, we’ll all smile and shake our heads and think “I don’t know how you survived!”.
This baby died from ignorance, not her mom’s vegan diet. Any good vegan knows you have to be very diligent about what you eat! I make sure to take a multi vitamin with B-12 every day because I’m still a new vegan. I MUST make sure I’m getting everything I need. I’d be even more diligent about it if I were pregnant or breast feeding. Any parent could have made the same mistakes they did, vegan or not. And trust me, ALL parents make mistakes at one point or another. These people should have just taken the baby to the hospital, or at least a nutritionist, when they were told how underweight she was!
Hi Harriet, generally, babies should start solid food at 6 mos or so, with breastmilk as the main food up to 11 - 12 months. It is hard to say, not knowing all the facts, exactly how much the mother’s vegan diet was at fault. I have read everything I could get my hands on about B12, and continue to seek info about it, because it’s a critical nutrient for anybody, not just vegans. From everything I’ve read about it, the B12 which is created in the intestines as a by product of digestion may not be absorbed by the body, and vegans should not rely on that possibility. Under ideal conditions, we could get B12 from soil, air and water and our healthy guts, but there is little likelihood of that these days. That isn’t something that vegans should rely on. Although B12 may be stored in the body for up to 20 years, stores can be exhausted quickly under conditions such as pregnancy, lactation, illness and dietary deficiency. Again, vegans shouldn’t count on that. If the parents did any of that, then they were idiots. All pregnant women, not just vegans, should take pre-natal vitamins before and during pregnancy, and throughout breastfeeding, as well as Vit D and B12.
Various studies show a high incidence of B12 deficiency in vegans (ref Becoming Vegan by Melina & Davis), and responsible vegans supplement. The mother could very well have been deficient in B12 as a result of being vegan for a long time without B12 supplementation, before she ever got pregnant, plus she may have been deficient in other nutrients such as iron, Vit D, Vit A etc. The baby’s health may have been compromised in the womb. We’ll never know for sure, but the moral of the story is of course “Better safe than sorry”. It costs little to take B12, or prenatal vitamins, and it is safe. It costs nothing to seek help from La Leche League or other pregnant/nursing support groups. France has socialized medicine, so the parents could have had low cost medical care. I agree that the parents were ignorant and deluded, maybe even idiots. They have paid for their mistakes with the death of their baby, jail time, loss of parental control of their other child, not to mention the mental and emotional anguish they’ll live with all their lives. And the negative publicity about vegan diet hasn’t helped the cause.
I say, take the B12, for heaven’s sake!
Nowhere in veganism does it say to exclusively breastfeed your baby for 11 months. Not getting mecical help isn’t part of the lifestyle either. ignorance killed the baby and it has nothing to do with veganism…b12 here we go again. Don’t spit back what the meat and dairy industry tell you. Read a science journal and you’ll find that b12 is created by bacteria in our guts and then stored for up to 20 years or so in our organs. Veganism will not cause b12 deficiency. The parents are idiots and starved that poor baby.
I too am mad, it is clear that ignorance killed this child. Most anyone if they weren’t too ignorant, would have sought help. A vegan diet is not at fault for the death
I think that these parents have been punished enough. I have a grandmother that lost 4 babies due to different reasons and she fed them the typical american diet. She didn’t like doctors and didn’t trust modern medicne. She had four other children that grew up healthy and happy.
Punishing these parents is insane. They baby might have died anyway. My daughter works in a hospital and sometimes babies die from that stuff, even if they eat meat or dairy. Sometimes there is nothing that can be done.
What a tragedy but I agree with Kim, this is a case of lack of diligence in seeking appropriate medical treatment when the baby became ill. All children get sick vegan ones as well as carnivore ones. I don’t think that a baby who is fed meat products is better nourished than a vegetarian or vegan baby on the contrary but if you have a baby with bronchitis and don’t give him or her appropriate medical care… tragedy is bound to happen.
We the readers don’t really have all the facts and so cannot decide about this one.
For our daughter, we the parents let her choose what she wanted to eat (unless it might be bad for her!) because given a smorgasbord daily, a child will eat what he or she needs. There is abundant wisdom on this and we hope that it will be available to all types of diets. Certain AMINO ACIDS are ESSENTIAL in themselves and also for utilization of other nutrients. We don’t know if the child was getting them.
What a terrible thing to have befallen an innocent and helpless baby,obviously at the hands of neglectful and moronic parents. The stupidity at work here wouldn’t be any different if the parents were meat eaters. I disagree with the court’s ruling that the parents are guilty of causing their baby’s death through their unbalanced diet. That, to me, seems like an attack on veganism. But the parents certainly appear guilty of not seeking potentially life-saving medical treatment.