Toddler On Vegan Diet Develops Rickets, Parents Plead Guilty To Malnourishing Her

A toddler developed rickets after she was fed a vegan diet for months, in Sydney, Australia.

The 19-month-old girl’s parents, whose names have not been revealed, admitted that the diet that they fed their daughter, might have caused her to become malnourished.

Breakfast for the toddler meant a cup of oats with rice milk and half a banana, while lunch was restricted to a piece of toast with jam or peanut butter. Dinner was comprised of tofu, and a toss between rice or potatoes. In addition, the toddler was not given any immunizations nor was any health checkups done, post-birth.

The couple appeared first appeared before the court in May this year, two months after their daughter suffered a seizure and had to be hospitalized. Although doctors initially respected the parents’ dietary choices, their concerns grew when they began examining the toddler, The Sun reported.

It is unclear as to when the parents of the child pleaded guilty. They are scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 16, 2019

At the age of one, she weighed 10 pounds, which was hardly double of her birth weight. When the father was asked by the police, why he was never concerned about his daughter’s lack of growth, he simply answered that he believed she was “petite.”

They found that Vitamin D – a severe lack of which is known to cause rickets – was “undetectable” in the child. In fact, her diet was so poor, that it caused her to bones to degenerate over time to such an extent that they could be broken by “normal handling”.

In addition, the toddler had tiny fractures spread across her body and was unable to crawl or talk during her month of being treated in hospital. She was described by doctors as “floppy.”

Following a month at the hospital, where experts worked to restore her health, the child was taken to foster care, along with her two older brothers, aged four and six. In just months she managed to gain three more pounds, following a normal and nutritious diet.

A joint investigation by The Daily Telegraph and Storyful, found many Australian parents on Facebook groups like Vegan Baby Led Weaning, discussing about the kind of vegan diets that they were putting their kids, as young as six months, on.

An unidentified mother wondered aloud about the possible vegan substitutions for meat that she could give her child. “She said he isn’t old enough for meat replacement like tofu yet but I really feel like greens and beans would be a great enough source of iron for him. But if I’m not feeding him these for a couple more months until he’s ready, will he actually be iron (or anything) deficient? I thought 'food before one is just for fun’ and breast milk is enough for them??” she wrote.

Another mother proposed to feed her six-month-old baby, seaweed after he had been weaned off breast milk. “A major gap is iodine. What do people do? Is seaweed OK? B12 seems to be from yeast flakes at this age — any other ideas?” she wrote.