I went to the LA Times site http://www.latimes.com/news/state/20000407/t000032600.html
and read the story Wendey from Montreal referred to.
It sounds deeply tragic.  The father is a part-time pastor of the "Grace Chapel of the Desert" church which was not listed in the local phone book.  From the article I clipped:
The mother said "she thought her breast milk would be adequate nutrition and although she realized the baby was poorly nourished, she did not take the baby for medical care for fear the baby and/or her other children might be removed by Child Protective Services," according to the coroner's report. 
     The baby weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces when he was born June 9. When he died Nov. 8, he weighed 5 pounds, 15 ounces, according to the coroner's office. 
     Janette Boesch called paramedics when she found the baby lifeless, and they in turn called sheriff's investigators, Patterson said. Prosecutors filed the charges after the autopsy was completed. 
     "The mother stated she had been the sole caretaker of the infant and that her husband had never even changed the baby's diapers," according to the autopsy report. ...
There is more in the article, but you get the flavor.  I wondered whether this mother has breastfed her other children, and whether she was practicing some specific theory of childrearing which could have compromised the baby's ability to get adequate nutrition at the breast.  Between the lines of the article is a chilling sadness about what sounds like a very isolated woman.
I would like to ask Lactnuts how easy they think it is for such a tragedy to occur in the US?  My gut feeling is that it would take a real effort to starve a baby for 5 months without being discovered here.  Follow up of infants is better than that.  My impression is that there is more here than a straightforward failure on the part of the mother implicated in the death of this child.
Rachel Myr
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