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Two vegan parents have lost custody of their 14-month-old baby after he was found to be seriously malnourished.

The baby boy is said to have weighed just 5kg - the same as a three-month-old baby - when he was admitted to hospital in Milan.

The child was taken to hospital by his grandparents a week ago and doctors found the baby, who was bon in May 2015, in poor health and seriously underweight.

After carrying out blood tests they found he was severely malnourished and had calcium levels that were barely adequate to survive.

Doctors also carried out emergency surgery on a congenital heart condition, and the baby is now recovering in hospital.

After doctors raised concerns with police and prosecutors, an inquiry was opened and it was decided the baby should be formally removed from his parents.

Luca Bernardo, director of paediatrics at the hospital, was quoted by The Times as saying: “This forces us to reflect on uncommon feeding regimes, even if in this case it was complicated by a cardiac malformation.

“It is not a problem to choose different or unusual kinds of nutrition and we certainly do not want to enter into a discussion of the merits of the decision. But since birth, the baby should have had support in this case with calcium and iron.”

The decision as to whether his grandparents should have custody will lie with Italian family courts.