Netizens appalled to see woman feed live tadpoles to kid

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After a Chinese woman was filmed feeding tadpoles to her child, a Chinese pediatrician has warned that the practice poses a high risk for a parasitic infection.

A short video circulated online shows a mother spoon-feeding her young son live tadpoles that she claims are good for his health. The kid was seen gobbling down a couple of amphibian larvae.

Chongqing Morning Newspaper Photo

The mother’s behavior has astounded netizens on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. Most of them slammed her for potentially harming the little boy.

“The parent is ignorant; the tadpoles are innocent; the kid is wretched,” a user named @wanchunchuxiadeni said.

“Parents should first test their IQ before giving birth to a baby,” @Queen_Serena said.

Screenshot from Weibo

Pei Honggang, a Shenzhen-based pediatrician, responded to the video and explained that parasites can be found in tadpoles and, if consumed raw, could possibly lead to sparganum infection.

Eating live tadpoles is a folk remedy in some areas of rural China. A 29-year-old farmer from central China’s Henan Province reportedly ate two bowls of tadpoles in a bid to treat his skin disease. But the man then had a persistent high fever, abdominal distention and pain as a result of a rare infection by a kind of tapeworm.

Screenshot

Lin Ximeng, a doctor from Henan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told a local newspaper that the sparganum infection was mainly acquired by eating raw or uncooked meat of frogs and snakes infected with plerocercoids, using frog or snake flesh as poultices, or drinking raw water contaminated with infected copepods.

Other places in the world have also seen people eating tadpoles. British naturalist Chris Packham reportedly ate them as a child, describing them as “sort of gritty.” He also encouraged children to eat the creature to bring them closer to nature.