16 years ago I gave birth to twins. When my husband and I went to take our son home 4 days later, the nurse carefully removed my son from my reach and asked “How old are you two?”
Both my husband and I were over 21. Tonight, however we got into a discussion on how things would have worked out if we weren’t. I contend that the nurse would have no right to deny us our baby if we both would have been under 21. My husband says the nurse would have had a legal right to withhold our baby based on our age alone.
The answer would depend, I suppose, on jurisdiction. Still---- do mothers have a right to their babies?
Well, geez, IANAL but just off the top of my head, hospital nurses don’t have the right to take children away from parents permanently–only DCFS (Child & Family Services), or Social Services, or whatever you call it where you are, can do that, and they have to have a certain amount of paperwork first, even for minor parents.
The nurse was way out of line, IMO. And what was she going to do with it if you had been under the age of consent (which in Illinois is 18) and you had let her take it? Ten to one she’d have cheerfully turned it in to DCFS and told them, “The teen mom says she doesn’t want him.”
Officious hospital nurses. Scary thought.
Anyway, IANAL but no question that moms of legal age have a right to their kids. Nowadays if a hospital nurse came in and took your baby away from you, you’d holler “Abduction!” so I’d be surprised if any nurses would even try it.
I’ll go look around for teen moms, because that’s what you’re asking, right?
It’s ironic given how many of our own mothers and grandmothers gave birth in their teens that we seem to look askance these days at anyone who becomes a parent under the age of 25.
Here, at least, the only role that any government agency would have to play is if the mother and child were deemed “at risk” in some way (if, for instance, it was suspected that the mother was being sexually abused by a family member, or she was homeless or otherwise incapable of caring for the baby). Even then, the role of the child welfare authorities would be to assist the mother in caring for her child, not to punish her for having sex under the age of consent.
While I’m not a great fan of teen parenthood, it’s pretty common around here to find 14 and 15 year old mothers trying to establish a family home with their boyfriend, and for the most part child welfare authorities have no reason to intervene - even though those mothers are under the age of consent.
Yes. And I’m talking about taking the baby home from the hospital after birth.
Houseman (my husband) states that if a mother tests positive for drugs the nurse is obliged to withhold the baby and I contended that taking drugs is against the law, being an underaged mother isn’t.
I’m really curious now. Can a nurse (or a hospital) deny release of a baby because of the mother’s age?
I suspect that in the “drugs” scenario, medical staff are required to alert the local welfare agency that the baby is potentially “at risk”, and the only circumstance under which the staff would be entitled to refuse to let the baby leave the hospital is where the welfare agency has applied for an interim order to allow them to make the assessment and the mother wishes to leave the hospital before that assessment has been carried out.
If the mother’s age ALONE was an issue, I suspect that any welfare authorities called in would be under an obligation to protect her just as much as they would be to protect the baby. Technically speaking, a mother who is under the age of consent is the possible “victim” of a crime.
I think Reprise is basically right. To the best of my knowledge, the doctors, nurses, or other hospital employee have no legal right to hold anyone’s baby or child. However, if the hospital staff feel that either the mother or the baby is in danger or there is the possibility of danger (for whatever reason- appearance of abuse, drugs, age, psychotic type behavior, etc), they are required to call Child Protective Services. In Texas, there is a 24 hr. hotline with a crisis investigative workers on call. The hotline people prioritize the call (from low risk to high risk) and they send out the worker if they deem it appropriate. The worker tries to secure the safety of the child first (for example, asking the mother if there is a trusted relative or friend they could go to or if they would like to go to a shelter, etc.) or if it is not really a crisis situation, they set them up for services if they need them. At this point, it is all voluntary, I believe the worker needs a court order to actually take possession the kid (however, if the worker or staff witnesses a criminal act, she can call the cops and they will take it from there as a crime). Luckily, from the workers I have talked to, most people in this situation are at least somewhat cooperative.
I can answer for New York- I was a child protective worker in NY just about 15 years ago.The hospital could have refused to release the baby, but only if they had made a report of neglect and the child protective agency had determined that the baby was at imminent risk and instructed them to pending a court hearing the next day. And the parents being underage, in itself, would not even be a sufficient reason to file such a report.