Couple fed infant daughter vegan diet so restricted it gave her rickets

A couple who fed their daughter a restricted vegan diet have admitted causing her serious injury after the girl developed rickets.

The parents, 32 and 34 – who cannot be named for legal reasons – fed their daughter oats and rice milk for breakfast but as she was a ‘fussy eater’ she might sometimes have the same for dinner, a court heard.

The girl, one, developed rickets, a degenerative bone disease caused by malnourishment, as a result of the diet, the court was told.

She and her two older brothers, four and six, are now in foster care.

Her parents, from Sydney, Australia, pleaded guilty to failing to provide for a child and causing serious injury after the girl was admitted to hospital in March.

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The mother told a hospital dietician that her entire family followed a vegan diet and that her daughter would generally have one cup of oats with rice milk and half a banana in the morning.

She said she would give her a piece of toast with jam or peanut butter for lunch.

And for dinner, she said her daughter would be offered tofu, rice or potatoes. But as a ‘fussy eater’ the girl might just have oats again, Downing Centre District Court heard.

Doctors said the diet meant the girl had severe nutrient deficiencies including a lack of calcium, phosphate, vitamin B12, vitamin A, iron and zinc.

Her levels of vitamin D – which can cause bone disease if found to be too low – were ‘undetectable’.

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Her bones were so brittle doctors believed they could have been broken by ‘normal handling’ and she was found to have fractures throughout her tiny body.

Her diet was only revealed to doctors when she had to go to hospital after suffering a seizure.

One doctor described her as ‘floppy’ and noted how the one-year-old didn’t crawl or talk during the month she was being cared for there.

Hospital staff initially respected the parents wishes to keep the infant on a vegan diet, but grew concerned when the mother outlawed soy, worried it was full of ‘hormones’.

The court heard that even after a week in hospital, the girl’s parents sent text messages denying their daughter’s lack of growth was a result of malnutrition.

Soon after, police spoke to the father at the hospital, asking him why he wasn’t concerned that his daughter never grew.

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At more than a year old, the child weighed only 10lbs, barely double what she weighed when she was a newborn.

‘(He) thought she was a girl and different to boys – she was petite,’ court documents say.

After an investigation into the girl’s medical history, doctors found an absence of immunisations, no follow-up check-ups after she was born and no birth certificate or Medicare number.

The children have now been in foster care for six months where the girl has put on 13lbs and is crawling and standing on her own.

She continues to be monitored by doctors.

The parents will next appear in court on January 16 for sentencing.