Infant Dies After Religious Parents Feed Him A Gluten-Free Diet

Grief-stricken parents are being held responsible for the death of their seven-month-old son, Lucas, who died weighing only nine pounds because they fed him a restrictive gluten-free and lactose-free diet. The parents, identified only as Sandrina V and Peter S of Beveren in Belgium, face 18 months of jail time for forcing the improper diet on their child.

Instead of getting the important nutrients a baby should receive from milk and baby formula, the infant would only be fed oat milk, rice milk, buckwheat milk, semolina milk, and quinoa milk, according to The Daily Mail. Furthermore, when the child was starving, the parents chose to drive him to a homeopathic doctor on the other side of the country, rather than bringing him to a local hospital. They probably got the idea from their chosen profession — the couple owns a natural food store in their hometown.

"The parents determined their own diagnosis that their child was gluten intolerant and had a lactose allergy," public prosecutors in Belgium said in a statement. "Not a single doctor had a dossier about Lucas and child protection services did not know about them."

"Sometimes he gained a little weight, sometimes he lost a little. We never wished for the death of our son," Sandrina said in a statement.

Their attorney, Karine Van Meirvenne, said that they believed Lucas had an eating disorder and/or allergies.

"Lucas had an eating disorder. He got cramps when he was fed with a bottle and his parents tried out alternatives," Van Meirvenne said.

Doctors confirmed that "these types of foods" are totally unsuitable for infants, and do not contain the necessary nutrients for a child's growth.

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