[WTF?!] Texas authorities seized newborn because parents chose midwife, said parents

[Kasey Chang]

Article here , but here's the TL;DR version:

* The Jacksons, who live in Dallas, chose home birth and gave birth to Mila 2 weeks ago, with a licensed midwife
* Jacksons took Mila for a hospital checkup, and doctor diagnosed Mila with jaundice, a common condition.
* Jacksons chose home treatment with their midwife instead of hospital stay.
* The doctor reported the Jacksons to Texas Child Protective Services (CPS) even though the Jackson have explained to the doctor that the midwife will conduct phototherapy.
* Desoto police and CPS agents raided Jacksons' home at 5AM but the parents refused to hand the baby over. Police and CPS left after a while, only to return later demanding that the couple hand over the child again as she's legally a CPS ward at this time, despite after hearing explanations from both the parents AND the midwife. They eventually left again. Several days went by.
* Last Tuesday, police returned and demanded the baby AGAIN, and when the parent refused, one was arrested, then police took his keys, and used it to enter his home and took the baby.
* Jacksons have had ONE visit with the baby, and when they noticed some problems with the baby, they were DENIED permission to seek treatment, was told "it's the foster family's responsibility"

[Kasey Chang]

The article seems to suggest that CPS may have confused the mother with a different woman who had run in with CPS before, as that's the mother listed on the CPS warrant. This case, as you can imagine, is getting nationwide attention, or at least someone definitely stoking the fires.

[gilraen]

Texas is a 3rd-world country at this point.

[Freyland]

Reading the comments, would appear there are a lot of crappy ulterior motives involved here. Baby's bilirubin was 21 (article linked in the comments) and the parents refused hospital care. This level mandates hospitalization to prevent brain damage (which occurs at 25 to 30, depending on this baby's gestational age). I would have called CPS too. The only thing I don't understand is the part where the third visit from police occurred 2 days after the initial visits; this was pretty urgent. Then again, I don't trust the parents at this point to be providing accurate information.

[Kasey Chang]

Phototherapy can be done outside of hospitals, and this sort of treatment is basically discouraging hospital visits lest you want YOUR baby taken away from you by some overzealous doc even though phototherapy (albeit, not "hospital-grade") is being done.

[disarm]

If the pediatrician felt the newborn's life was in danger due to the parents not agreeing to appropriate medical care, then it is perfectly normal for CPS to become involved to protect the health of the child. In this case, a midwife is not a medical professional trained in the monitoring and treatment of severe jaundice. Despite what the parents and that midwife may think, there is a good chance that this newborn's problems were beyond the midwife's training (which is really very little beyond assisting with pregnancy and the birth process), and that's likely why the pediatrician chose to get CPS involved.

Unfortunately, the story becomes much more complicated from there. The parents and their legal representation are clearly very sceptical of the medical community as a whole, and the handling of their child after CPS intervention seems inappropriate based on the information in that article. The goal should have been to get medical treatment for the newborn, then return them to custody of the parents as soon as possible, but our wonderful legal system doesn't move that quickly. I'm willing to bet that there's a lot more to this story and the parent's behavior than what has been reported. Cooperation with the system would likely get their child back to them more quickly than fighting every step of the way. Emotions are strong when a newborn child is involved though...

[Freyland]

Phototherapy can be done outside of hospitals....

Let me help you with that. Home phototherapy, assuming a midwife can even order it, consists of a layer of special lights a baby lays upon. The coverage is less and the concentration of lights is less. Less than what? Less than the exceptionally powerful overhead lights used in the hospital, in conjunction with the "blanket" mentioned above. But the overhead lights have their own dangers, so they are utilized in the hospital setting for proper monitoring. Additionally, since you are skirting brain damage at those levels, we tend to check levels more frequently as well as start looking for other reasons why the bilirubin is high. Finally, once you hit about a 19, babies start becoming lethargic, which means they eat more poorly, which means they get dehydrated, which means their blood gets concentrated, which means their bili rises even faster.
Playing with a bilirubin of 21 as an outpatient is playing with fire... from a blowtorch. Bili-blankets are still used by some in the outpatient setting for bilirubin levels that are high enough to raise an eyebrow, but would not be appropriate at all in this case.

[LawBeefaroni]

A midwife is not a pediatrician. Simple as that. They were refuaing appropriate care in favor of less appropriate care.

[Kasey Chang]

The strong-armed tactics of CPS is not exactly making a case for hospital treatment here.

We're in a world where the parents can refuse vaccination and the system doesn't bat an eye, but the same parents can gets baby taken away for requesting alternate phototherapy and had the CPS sic'ed on them.

The proper response should have been schedule them for the lights in a hospital right away, and convince the midwife to go along, at least for the initial sessions until the level had gone down far enough so home sessions are appropriate.

[LawBeefaroni]

The strong-armed tactics of CPS is not exactly making a case for hospital treatment here.

We're in a world where the parents can refuse vaccination and the system doesn't bat an eye, but the same parents can gets baby taken away for requesting alternate phototherapy and had the CPS sic'ed on them.

The proper response should have been schedule them for the lights in a hospital right away, and convince the midwife to go along, at least for the initial sessions until the level had gone down far enough so home sessions are appropriate.

It sounds like they refused.

We don't have the full story but it's probably a lot of miscommunication and egos on both sides, as usual, causing a perfectly acceptable resolution to get lost in a bunch of huffing and puffing.

[Freyland]

Let's not forget time is of the essence here. Kernicterus waits for no one. One of the several "off" things about the initial article is the whole 2 day delay between when the police claim CPS now has authority and the actual child collection. That's either a serious screw-up on the bureaucratic side of things, or the parents are lying. At this point it's 50-50 either way, to me.

Comparing vaccination refusal to this is very ignorant, and not helpful.

[Kasey Chang]

Time factor is where comparison fails. Thanks for reminding me about that.

Clearly, I've been guilty of falling for propaganda.

[ImLawBoy]

It's OK to be dubious about child protective service organizations and how they operate. They have had big issues with both overreach (particularly for poor or minority families) and failing to provide adequate protection to the children they're supposed to serve. They may not be the bad guys in this case, though.

[Freyland]

It really does feel like the article author has an agenda. But despite my contrary-ness and frustration above, there is lots of room in my mind for the Authority side to have screwed up. I'm particularly frustrated that the child is not back with the parents after the hyperbilirubinemia issue was addressed, assuming there isn't more to the story. Which is the rub we are facing.

[Scoop20906]

Unfortunately once a child is removed a lot has to happen before the child is returned. First the parents need to be investigated and a home study has to be performed to ensure it’s safe. A parent was arrested. CPS might say they won’t return the child until that case is resolved (say they return the child but one month later the parent (s) are incarcerated). Also this is all happening at the pace of the court system. It’s horrific but also logical at the same time. As soon as that doctor reported them that set everything in motion. They moral of story is to avoid all public officials or public reports like the plague if you have a child. Minorities are especially at risk where the systems assumes guilty by skin color.

I know all of that sounds horrible buts what we have learned to do.

[Blackhawk]

It sounds (barring more information) like this is less "They don't bow down, so we take their kid", and more like a case with parents refusing to treat a child's cancer. There is a point at which refusing professional medical care for a child strays into neglect. If that's the case, I'm less surprised at how hard CPS went in and more surprised that it took them several days to do so.

[Unagi]

This can't be remotely a new thing. Haven't people gone to court over the right to prayers vs. care on their children? Or I suppose that wasn't even asserted in this case.