Malnourished Baby Dies Due To Parents’ Strict Diet

A 7-month-old baby died, weighing in at just 9 pounds, after his parents fed him a gluten-free diet, including quinoa milk.

The baby’s mother and father ran a natural food store in the town of Beveren, Belgium, reports the Daily Mail. Doctors say their son’s diet was unsuitable and that it led to the baby being less than one-half of the expected weight of a child his age.

At autopsy revealed the baby’s stomach was empty. The parents reportedly chose not to seek medical help, even though their son was gasping for air in the days leading up to his death in June 2014.

“The parents determined their own diagnosis that their child was gluten intolerant and had a lactose allergy. Not a single doctor had a dossier about Lucas and child protection services did not know about them,” a lawyer said during a trial for the child’s death, according to Rare.

During the trial, the parents said they didn’t take their baby to a doctor because they didn’t think there was anything wrong with him. They say that they noticed that Lucas would occasionally gain weight and then lose it, but that they thought that the weight fluctuation was normal.

Eventually, the parents brought the infant to a homeopathic doctor, who recommended the parents take the baby to a conventional hospital. When they brought Lucas to the hospital, it was too late. He was pronounced dead on arrival.

Lucas’ official cause of death was malnutrition and dehydration.

Public prosecutors are seeking an 18-month prison sentence for each of the boy’s parents. Prosecutors say the parents are to blame for the child’s death because they gave Lucas an insufficient diet.

Lucas was reportedly fed quinoa milk, oat milk, rice milk, buckwheat milk and semolina milk from the natural food store that the parents owned. 

“These kinds of milk, which you can buy in a supermarket, do not contain the necessary proteins, minerals and vitamins,” said Doctor Elisabeth De Greed, of the University Hospital of Brussels. “They are not adjusted to infants and thus unsuitable.”

Despite doctors saying the diet Lucas was fed will not sustain an infant, the couple’s lawyer said in court that that was not the case and that Lucas died for another reason.

“Lucas had an eating disorder,” the parents’ attorney said. “He got cramps when he was fed with a bottle and his parents tried out alternatives.”

The trial is still underway. A judge is set to deliver a ruling on the case on June 14.

Sources: Rare, Daily Mail / Photo credit: Visual Hunt