Latest news with #JaquelineNavarro
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
California Parents' 'Extreme' Health Views Left Child a Quadriplegic
A California couple was convicted on Monday after causing irreversible brain damage to their young son. The Orange County district attorney's office determined that parents John Andres Gonzalez, 38, and Jaqueline Navarro, 45, were both guilty of felony child abuse and endangerment. They were each sentenced to a maximum of 12 years in prison, a punishment enhanced by the aggravating circumstance of causing great bodily injury to a child under 5. According to the OCDA's press release, charges against Gonzalez and Navarro stemmed from "exposing their newborn son to extreme heat and cold" and "withholding vital nourishment." The couple's negligence was said to have nearly killed the infant and resulted in severe brain damage, leaving the child "a quadriplegic unable to walk, talk, or see." The press release went into detail about the parents' dangerous health practices. Gonzalez and Navarro subscribed to naturopathy, which is the belief that the body can heal itself from diseases without the help of modern medicine. When the baby was born in 2019, the parents did not feed him breast milk or formula, believing both to be "toxic" for their child. The couple considered themselves vegan mucus-free fruitarians, which pushed them to feed their son only soy-based formula, fruits, and vegetables. They also exposed him to "high-temperature saunas" and "ice baths" when he was just weeks old. The lifestyle eventually led to a medical emergency. The baby was rushed to the emergency room of an Orange County hospital in August 2020. The then-10-month-old infant was in a catatonic state and had graying skin. Gonzalez continued pushing his extreme health beliefs while his son was hospitalized, imploring medical staff to starve his son to heal him. While the child survived, he was left with irreversible brain damage. His paternal grandmother, Patrizia Sanchez, repeatedly reported what was happening to the Tulare County Department of Child Welfare Services when the child was still a month old. Despite over a dozen calls to the office, the agency failed to act on Sanchez's warnings, per the press release. Sanchez later filed a lawsuit against the Tulare County, leading to the largest settlement of its kind in California history. Sanchez was awarded custody of the Parents' 'Extreme' Health Views Left Child a Quadriplegic first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 4, 2025
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
California boy now blind and quadriplegic — authorities blame his parents' extreme health views
Parents who brought their unresponsive newborn to an Orange County hospital in 2020 were convicted of felony child abuse this week, on charges they exposed the baby to extreme heat and cold and failed to provide him necessary nourishment, causing severe brain damage that left the child a quadriplegic, and unable to talk or see. John Andres Gonzalez, 38, and Jaqueline Navarro, 45, were each convicted of felony child abuse and endangerment, with an enhancement for causing great bodily injury to a child under 5, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. They each face a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison. Prosecutors said the couple considered themselves "vegan mucus-free fruitarians," which appears to refer to belief in a diet aimed at removing mucus from the body. They were also followers of naturopathy, prosecutors said, which typically means employing a more holistic approach to preventing and treating disease by addressing root causes. But Gonzalez and Navarro appeared to employ misguided and extreme views related to these practices, including that the body could heal itself and that breast milk was toxic, according to prosecutors and lawsuits about the case. They would only feed the baby soy-based formula, fruits and vegetables, prosecutors said. In a lawsuit, his paternal grandmother said the couple tried to keep the baby on a plant-based diet, and primarily fed him blended bananas and dates with honey. Medical professionals, including naturopaths, recommend breastfeeding a baby during their first six months of life for optimal nutrition, or using formula almost exclusively. Within weeks of their son's birth, the couple also began putting him in high-temperature saunas and ice baths, prosecutors said. Read more: Parents arrested after 9-month-old tests positive for cocaine in Tulare County Orange County authorities became involved in the case when the couple brought their limp, unresponsive son to Hoag Hospital Emergency Room in Newport Beach, where they'd been on vacation. The couple lived in Lindsay, in Tulare County. "The baby was gray in color, emaciated, and catatonic," according to the statement from prosecutors. "Emergency room doctors discovered the boy had extremely low blood sugar levels and suffered from hypoxia and constant seizures." Further tests confirmed that he had not been fed properly, prosecutors said. But even during the hospital stay, Gonzalez objected to many life-saving treatments and said he "believed that starvation would lead to healing," the prosecutors' statement said. The brain damage the boy suffered is permanent, doctors reported, causing him to be a quadriplegic, blind and unable to talk, walk or eat on his own. The boy is now 5 and under the care of his paternal grandmother. The grandmother had been concerned about her grandson soon after he was born, and had repeatedly called the Tulare County Department of Child Welfare Services to report possible abuse or neglect. She filed a lawsuit against the county's welfare agency, claiming the agency failed to protect her grandson, resulting in the child's permanent brain damage. That case was settled in 2023 for $32 million dollars, which at the time was believed to be the largest settlement obtained from a child protective services agency in California. 'This innocent child suffered from almost the first breath he took because of his parents' beliefs that starvation would cure him,' Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement. 'Instead of curing him, they robbed him of his sight, his ability to take his first steps, to say his first words, and his chance to see the world. ... Tragically, he will never get to experience any of those milestones because his parents starved him nearly to death instead of giving him the nourishment he so desperately needed.' Gonzalez and Navarro are currently being held without bail and will be sentenced July 25. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
