- Mothers fed babies 'pureed pizza and pork crackling'
- By Bonnie Malkin
- The Telegraph - UK
- 17/04/2009 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: The Rooster ( 258 articles in 2009 )
Prosecutors allege the 25 and 30-year-old women, who shared a house, nearly killed their children by giving them whatever was left over from their own meals.
The children, a girl then aged 16 months and a boy aged 13 months, suffered severe malnutrition as a result of their terrible diet that they could not sit up by themselves or lift their heads, the court heard.
The children were taken away from their mothers in August, the Cairns Post reported.
The women, from the northern Queensland town of Edmonton, near Cairns, will face court on charges of child cruelty.
Senior constable Sharon Steward told Cairns magistrate court that the infants were so severely malnourished that they would have died without intervention.
She claimed the women, who cannot be named, fed their children only leftovers including pizza, pork crackling, calamari, prawns and other take-away.
The pair pureed the food and diluted it with water before feeding it to the children in bottles, she said.
Linda Jones, a food analyst, gave evidence in court that baby bottles taken from the defendants' home containing pureed potato and pork crackling consisted of 90 per cent water.
Ms Steward said Elena Mantz, a paediatrician at Cairns Base Hospital, found both children were drastically under-developed for their age and couldn't lift their heads or sit up by themselves. Both were at serious risk of death and were classed below the weight of 97 per cent of other children their age.
"(Dr Mantz said) they would have been highly vulnerable to any infection or illness and without intervention both children would have eventually died."
Both women had been advised how to properly feed and care for their children, now aged two and 21 months, but the advice had been ignored, she said.
"From the evidence, it would appear both defendants have neglected to take advice from experts in relation to raising their children and adequately providing food that would encourage proper development."
A date for the trial has yet to be set.
The children, a girl then aged 16 months and a boy aged 13 months, suffered severe malnutrition as a result of their terrible diet that they could not sit up by themselves or lift their heads, the court heard.
The children were taken away from their mothers in August, the Cairns Post reported.
The women, from the northern Queensland town of Edmonton, near Cairns, will face court on charges of child cruelty.
Senior constable Sharon Steward told Cairns magistrate court that the infants were so severely malnourished that they would have died without intervention.
She claimed the women, who cannot be named, fed their children only leftovers including pizza, pork crackling, calamari, prawns and other take-away.
The pair pureed the food and diluted it with water before feeding it to the children in bottles, she said.
Linda Jones, a food analyst, gave evidence in court that baby bottles taken from the defendants' home containing pureed potato and pork crackling consisted of 90 per cent water.
Ms Steward said Elena Mantz, a paediatrician at Cairns Base Hospital, found both children were drastically under-developed for their age and couldn't lift their heads or sit up by themselves. Both were at serious risk of death and were classed below the weight of 97 per cent of other children their age.
"(Dr Mantz said) they would have been highly vulnerable to any infection or illness and without intervention both children would have eventually died."
Both women had been advised how to properly feed and care for their children, now aged two and 21 months, but the advice had been ignored, she said.
"From the evidence, it would appear both defendants have neglected to take advice from experts in relation to raising their children and adequately providing food that would encourage proper development."
A date for the trial has yet to be set.
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/5169927/Mothers-fed-babies-pureed-pizza-and-pork-crackling.html
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