Underweight children taken by the state will not go back to their Iowa parents, who argued that

[TexasTowelie]

Underweight children taken by the state will not go back to their Iowa parents, who argued that small size was a family trait


Western Iowa parents who argued that their four children were exceptionally small because of genetics, not malnourishment, lost their final bid to regain their parental rights Friday.

The Iowa Supreme Court split 3-3 on whether to affirm a judge's ruling terminating parental rights. Under Iowa law, that means the judge's initial ruling stands. In this instance, it also wipes out an Iowa Court of Appeals ruling that human services officials failed to prove that the parents were unfit and that the children would be better off in other care.

Juvenile court records in Iowa are confidential, meaning that the Court of Appeals ruling in August 2019 and the Supreme Court's 91-word order are the only public documents describing the case. The parents were not named, and attorneys for them and the children did not return phone calls seeking comment Friday. The termination proceedings were held in Pottawattamie County.

The mother and father had four children, born in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2018, according to the appeals court ruling. Two were hospitalized for failure to thrive, a broad medical term used to describe children who don't put on enough weight.

Read more: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2019/09/27/iowa-supreme-court-failure-to-thrive-children-fate-underweight-genetics/3786672002/