Vegan breastfed baby taken from parents!!!

well, this is an extremely unusual SDA family. i'm an SDA, and the vast majority of members of my church are in health care: doctors, dentists, therapists, nurses. Loma Linda hospital and school are SDA organizations. they are vegan and typically extremely healthy. they also typically have a great deal of respect for the health care community, since so many are a part of it. they consider it part of their duty to care for their physical health in order to better serve god on earth. they also work hard to promote healthy living in their churches and communities. when i delivered my daughter at the local hospital, 7 good friends from church took a break from their nursing jobs to come visit me, and two of my surgical nurses were church members, as well as the nurse to attended me after church. so, like i said, this is extremly odd for the SDA community. it sounds much more like a christian science thing.

but the vegan baby being taken away was clearly not because the baby's parents were vegan. rahter, it's because they were kinda crazy, i think. one would only have to see all the gloriously gorgeous, healthy babies running around church on saturdays to know that a vegan baby can be in perfect health.
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The vegan diet is perfectly healthy for every age and stage of life. The research has proven that. Click on the link to the American Dietetic Association in my sig to learn more.

I will be raising my kids vegan. It is sad though that certain people will take stories like this and run with them, completely ignoring the fact that veganism is perfectly healthy.

 

well, it's also sad that people focus on the vegan part and not on the poor parenting aspect. i highlly doubt this baby was removed from the parent for being vegan. malnourishment is malnourishment. poor care is poor care.

 

RIGHT! This story was more about nutritional and medical neglect, which can happen in a carniviorous family, as well. It had little to do with Veganism.

 

I'm not criticizing all SDAs. In the stories I read the mom claimed that they didn't give their son the tylenol or the iron supplement that the hospital offered them because the iron supplement had sugar in it-it wasn't pure enough, and I don't understand the reason for not giving him tylenol. So, as I said in my first post, I'm not attacking the whole SDA church, but for these particular parents to claim that they were making these decisions on religious grounds seemed so irresponsible to me.


Had they compromised a tiny little bit, their kid would have been healthier and they wouldn't have gotten hassled.

Personally, I don't think the vegan diet is for everyone. That's my personal opinion. I am not saying that some kids can't be healthy on it, but if this particular kid was anemic, then this particular kid needed a supplement. His parents could have given him the one in the hospital and then found one that was more to their liking once they left. Crisis averted.

So, this wasn't, in my opinion, a story about vegan parents getting their kid taken away, or even SDA parents. It was about irresponsible and possibly mentally ill parents getting their kid taken away for his own good. Especially if it's true that the dad spoke of killing himself and the child. I would think that at that moment he was speaking as a person who was not thinking clearly, not as a vegan SDA. Do you know what I mean?

Also, and maybe this is a little off topic, it really strikes a nerve with me when people don't get their kids the medical attention they need. I have always had epilepsy and, consequently, religious people of various persuasions have ALWAYS accused me of being possessed by demons, or said that God must be unhappy with me, or that I must have bad karma, or that if my faith was stronger I would be healed. People have actually gotten upset with me when their prayers didn't cure me! Such bullshit. SO when I hear stories about a baby leaving the hospital with a high fever and without his iron supplement because of the parents' religious beliefs, it bugs me. Did it occur to them that maybe their God was offering their kid this medicine through these doctors or some such thing? Were they waiting for Christ to offer them an organic, vegan fever reducer in person? Whatever.

 

wow. you know, that's some freaky shit. i've never in my life met a freaky religious zealot, except for the ones accosting you in supermarket parking lots trying to bully you into attending their church or something. epilepsy as demon possession? that's just insane. i thought that went out with the inquisition.

 

yes, the story is intense. of course, of course a child should receive medical attention pertinant to his health at a given moment. however...
don't you wonder why there is so much crap offered to children in hopes of helping them? why do those iron supplements have all those nasty additives? are there easily available alternatives that the parents could have found? shit, i'd be picky if my child was being offered artifcial colors and other nasties.
also, hmm...it seems that the child was on a raw diet, not just a vegan one. the media should point that out more than labeling the family as vegan over and over. i can't imagine that a raw diet would be good at all for a little baby; i can't imagine that their tender little bodies can even digest all that ruffage. (i know mine can't!) one of the articles listed above simply suggested that the baby would have been okay had he been fed grains and lentils. then another article did mention that the baby ate the enigmatic 'amaranth.' geez.
i realize i'm just rambling...what i'm getting at is that the media's presentation of someone is often arbitrary and quite subjective. i found none of the info, from the mother or the newspapers, to at all satiate my curiousity on the issue. they all were opinionated views.

 

I have looked at the link in your signiture.I did not see any scientific proof to suggest that a vegan diet is perfectly healthy for anyone.In any case nothing is really proved in science. Look up the scientific method some time. It is accepted that the basic laws of mathematics such as the rules of arithmetic and trigonometry are proven but more complex issues are always open to controversy.

Even if I was to take what is written on the page on face value, I find it less than convincing.The references are not hyperlinked (a generally accepted rule for publishing on the web these days).Even when a google search is done, the references look less the convincing.

It is all very well being an armchair nurtritionist, but when it is YOU who is fighting nicotine addiction, and it is YOU who has haemorrhoids and it is YOU who has a mild case of bi-polar and it is YOU who lacks energy then all becomes a different matter.

For a web page that is so concerned about peoples' health I am astonished there is no mention of the dangers of trans fats. These are found in margarine, other hydronated shortenings and some vegetable oils. Trans fats are some of the most toxic substances that people put in their bodies. Margarine is not food!

 

Well, when you have epilepsy these people are drawn to you.

I woke up after a seizure at a protest once to find many, many strangers (Right-to-lifers, I don't know their religious affiliation, but thye were xians.) chanting over me, trying to exorcise the demons. Fortunately the ambulance came and took me away.

A woman at my college saw me have a generalized tonic clonic seizure on campus and followed me for weeks, even into the ladies' room(!) and kept begging me to let her church exorcise the demons from me and my daughter, who also has epilepsy (our kids went to daycare together). I repeatedly, politely told her to leave me alone for a few weeks, but eventually I had to get the dean involved and they threatened to expel her if she didn't stop harrassing me.

I have other stories.

There are still tons of people who believe that it's caused by demons. Even some xtian people with epilepsy that come to the epilepsy forums online.

Since asking people to leave me alone doesn't work, next time, if I have the presence of mind, I'm going to tell these morons That I am possessed and that the voices are telling me to kill them and they should run!

 

Levi, that is really scary shit, about the people who wanted to exorcise you. Have these people heard of neurological problems being MEDICAL and PHYSIOLOGICAL? I have similar weirdos always trying to get me to eat blue green algea (to which I am allergic to, but they think my anaphylactic reaction to the shit is just "your body cleansing itself" yeah, cleansing itself to death!) or convince me I have "candida" or "parasites" when what I have is a neurological, hereditary neurotranmitter condition which causes me to have continual migraines. I hate that shit.

 

yikes. i get the migraines thing. have had them since childhood. they used to cause me to pass out. i have known quite a few people with epilepsy in my life, aunts, uncles, friends and such. i have never heard of the exorcism thing. i do know it's considered general good practice to pray for someone's relief, strength and safety when they have such an illness. there have been a couple times where i've heard someone told they were sick because they weren't faithful enough. makes one wanna go postal.

where do you live, levi? when i lived in simi valley i got the worst christian types ever.

 

Ummm, it's the American Dietetic Association! Do you even really know who that is? Or are you one of those people who get offended by those who know more about something than you. They are NEUTRAL and they are the ones who find out what is good and bad about every diet. Do you even know what the ADA is? You should go here...(not quoting as you have A LOT to read)...

http://www.eatright.org/Public/index_adafaq.cfm

And the fact remains that the vegan diet is perfectly healthy for every age and stage of life...

"Well-planned vegan and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy and lactation. Appropriately planned vegan and lacto-ovo-vegetarian diets satisfy nutrient needs of infants, children, and adolescents and promote normal growth (37). Dietary deficiencies are most likely to be observed in populations with very restrictive diets. All vegan children should have a reliable source of vitamin B-12 and, if sun exposure is limited, vitamin D supplements or fortified foods should be used. Foods rich in calcium, iron, and zinc should be emphasized. Frequent meals and snacks and the use of some refined foods and foods higher in fat can help vegetarian children meet energy needs. Guidelines for iron and vitamin D supplements and for the introduction of solid foods are the same for vegetarian and nonvegetarian infants. When it is time for protein-rich foods to be introduced, vegetarian infants can have pureed tofu, cottage cheese, and legumes (pureed and strained). Breast-fed vegan infants should receive a source of vitamin B-12 if the mother's diet is not supplemented and a source of vitamin D if sun exposure is inadequate."​

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http://www.eatright.org/Public/Other/index_adap1197.cfm​

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I am raising my kids vegan not matter what. I have science on my side.​

 

As the nutritional research has proven, it is healthy but needs to be well-balanced, which is true with any diet. Obviously yours wasn't. That is why you go to a nutritionist.

 

i went to a nutritionist, i still ended up losing my hair and getting really sick.

 

Thank you for making me laugh! In sympathy and empathy, of course! SO MANY TIMES people tell me, since I was a child, that if I changed my diet my epilepsy would stop. Dorks. I feel like saying, "Thanks for your concern. Medicine helps to partially control my seizures. I am worried about you, though, but cheer up. There is hope for your condition. I saw a report on CNN that said that a total lack of tact has been linked to a gene. Someday, with gene therapy, it may be possible to cure obnoxious people like you."

People have also tried the 'cleansing' thing with me. Once a guy, who I thought was my friend, gave me so much of a B vitamin, I am trying to remember which one, that my whole body turned red and puffy and my skin burned all over. I got really dizzy. It was so painful and frightening! What he gave me didn't look like a huge amount, but it turned out to be an overdose. He said that my allergic reaction was 'cleansing' and was 'toxins' leaving my body. Toxins my ass. He gave me an overdose. That's toxic.

I have tried to explain to religious and diet fanatics that my seizures are caused by detectable scar tissue in my brain caused by a high fever that I had as a baby. Someone even told me that it was just the visual manifestation of the demon. I only wish I were joking.

You know, all this crap really gets on my nerves, but I always try to look on the bright side. So here it is. Having epilepsy, and being open about it, makes it really clear right from the start what kind of person someone is. If they're into that kind of crap where they think my kid and I are possessed or whatever, I find out right away. People reveal themselves very quickly. That's a good thing. I don't waste any time getting to know them if they turn out to be whackos. (Of course I try to educate them, but I don't seek out the company of people who think we're evil.)

Also, some annoying people are scared of us. That's a good thing, too.

I can live with that.

 

Maggie Sugar, does your allergy to blue green algae manifest as a headache, if you don't mind my asking? I have tried it, because I remember feeling great when I drank a smoothie with some in it, but when I eat the tablets, I get a headache. At first I thought it was a coincidence, but it happened several times.


I also get migraines.

 

I live about 2 hours north of San Francisco, but the exorcism at the protest happened in Madison, Wisconsin. The B-vitamin 'cleansing' guy was some type of Hare Krisna from Hawaii.

The lady at the college was here.

I was excited once because I met some parents in my rural town that also had a kid with epilepsy. I wanted to have someone to talk to about it, compare doctors, experiences. Our daughters are the same age. Much to my disgust, though, these people don't treat their daughter medically for her seizures! The dad is a Southern Baptist preacher and the daughter has drop seizures, which are dangerous because there's no warning. They told me that one night she fell right next to the campfire! But they don't medicate her because they're praying really hard. So, we're not friends.

Also, their friend from church made fun of people with epilepsy when we met. I explained that I knew the pastor because our kids both had E and he said that some people with E used to go to their church. Then he laughed while he imitated them having seizures. I told that jackass off. He said he's too old to change. I let him have it. I told him that I know why those people don't come to his church anymore. It's because he's an obnoxious, insensitive, ignorant jerk. Then I asked him if that's how God wants him to treat disabled people. Dork.

 

Do you know what The Farm is? In Tennessee? I wasn't a vegan child who decided on my own to only eat lettuce or something. I lived in the intentional community that was vegan before the vast majority of Westerners were even aware of that possibility. Yes, we were nutrition conscious.

It still didn't agree with me. I feel much better when I don't eat such a restricted diet.

I still haven't told you not to be vegan. I still have never said that nobody should be vegan. I have not attacked you. All I ever said was that it made me feel lousy and that, IMO, it isn't for everyone. That's my opinion after being exposed to veganism for 30 years or so. I don't feel like I'm jumping to conclusions here. And I haven't attacked you, so calm down.