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. 2018 Dec 20;11(1):5.
doi: 10.3390/nu11010005.

Vegan Nutrition for Mothers and Children: Practical Tools for Healthcare Providers

Luciana Baroni  1 , Silvia Goggi  2   3 , Roseila Battaglino  4   5 , Mario Berveglieri  6 , Ilaria Fasan  7   8 , Denise Filippin  9 , Paul Griffith  10 , Gianluca Rizzo  11 , Carla Tomasini  12 , Maria Alessandra Tosatti  13 , Maurizio Antonio Battino  14   15
Affiliations

Vegan Nutrition for Mothers and Children: Practical Tools for Healthcare Providers

Luciana Baroni et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

As the number of subjects choosing vegan diets increases, healthcare providers must be prepared to give the best advice to vegan patients during all stages of life. A completely plant-based diet is suitable during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, and childhood, provided that it is well-planned. Balanced vegan diets meet energy requirements on a wide variety of plant foods and pay attention to some nutrients that may be critical, such as protein, fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, iron, zinc, iodine, calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin B12. This paper contains recommendations made by a panel of experts from the Scientific Society for Vegetarian Nutrition (SSNV) after examining the available literature concerning vegan diets during pregnancy, breastfeeding, infancy, and childhood. All healthcare professionals should follow an approach based on the available evidence in regard to the issue of vegan diets, as failing to do so may compromise the nutritional status of vegan patients in these delicate periods of life.

Keywords: plant-based diets; vegan breastfeeding; vegan children; vegan diets; vegan infants; vegan pregnancy.

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Conflict of interest statement

L.B. is the author of books describing the method of the VegPlate, which is cited in this paper; M.A.B. is the director of the International Master in Vegetarian Nutrition and Dietetics, hosted by Funiber; all other authors declare no conflict of interest.

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