The Frightening Danger Of Baby Food Fads

A baby in regional Victoria suffered such severe malnutrition that it led to permanent brain damage when her parents fed her on home-made formula and herbal tea. Genevieve Gannon investigates an extreme diet culture gone mad.

- Genevieve Gannon

It was the middle of the night when the small, limp baby girl was brought into the emergency department of Geelong Hospital. She had blood in her nappy and was cool to the touch. The nurse noted she had open wounds and grazes, which her father insisted were nappy rash. Sarah Michelle Adams* had just turned one, but when the nurse put her on the scale she weighed 6.04kg, about the same as an average four-month-old. “Wow, she lost 3kg. When did that happen?” her father said. He told the nurse she had been vomiting and had diarrhoea, but she had been eating and drinking normally.

Normal was not an accurate description of Sarah’s diet. Court documents show that two days earlier, on August 5, 2018, Sarah’s father had sought advice from a US-based “herbal health club” that claims to specialise in “regenerative detoxification” because Sarah had bruising around her abdomen, “wacky green poo” and was “vomiting up the same stuff”.

“Sarah’s going through heavy detoxification,” John Francis Adams said in an email to herbal health club employee Shannon Brese, which was tendered in court. “Is there a way we can slow the detox down without prolonging it? We really don’t want to take her to the doctors or hospital because they just don’t understand, but we also don’t want her to get so sick that we have no choice.”

The court found that, after consulting Shannon, John had been feeding his one-year-old a “stomach tea” because she had been refusing food, but after hearing how Sarah responded to the tea, Shannon said to take her to hospital.