Black Couple Says Authorities Seized Their Newborn Because They Chose a Midwife Over a Hospital

Two weeks ago, Dallas parents Temecia and Rodney Jackson opted for a home birth for their newborn daughter, Mila, with licensed midwife Cheryl Edinbyrd. As of Thursday, the infant remains in the custody of Dallas Child Protective Services in what the Jacksons and their advocates at the Dallas-based, Black-women-led birth and reproductive justice organization The Afiya Center have likened to a “kidnapping.” Minutes before the start of a scheduled Thursday morning hearing for the couple to get their newborn back, the hearing was postponed to April 20th—two weeks from now.

Shortly after Mila’s birth last month, upon taking her to see their pediatrician, they learned she had developed a case of jaundice—a highly common condition in newborns resulting in the yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes, which typically goes away without treatment within one to two weeks. Dr. Anand Bhatt said the case was severe enough that they should take her to the hospital for phototherapy treatment, but the Jacksons opted to do the same phototherapy treatment for Mila in their home under Edinbyrd’s guidance. According to the letter Bhatt ultimately wrote CPS, published by local outlet WFAA, he was concerned that they had the wrong lights for the treatment. They’d connected him with Edinbyrd, but he was having trouble getting bacl in touch with them directly, and he decided to report them “after trying 10 attempts to appeal to the family through phone calls, text messages and leaving voicemails as they did not pick up the phone.”

“Parents are very loving and they care dearly about their baby,” he wrote of the Jacksons. “Their distrust for medical care and guidance has led them to make a decision for the baby to refuse a simple treatment that can prevent brain damage.” Baylor Scott & White Hospital declined to comment on this story “in respect of patient privacy.”

Within days, the Jacksons say Dallas police officers and CPS agents arrived at their doorstep at around 5 a.m., informing the family that their pediatrician had reported them and demanding that they turn her over. The officers eventually left their home when the Jacksons refused—only to return hours later and tell the family that Mila was legally in the custody of Dallas CPS. The Jacksons again refused to turn over their newborn and instead reached out to their midwife for help. “Our midwife then reached out to the pediatrician, just letting him know that he had traumatized us, that we were woken up by police banging our door at 4 a.m., 5 a.m. Then after she gave him all the credentials he’d requested from her, he pretty much said he was going to leave our care and our midwife teams,” Temecia said at a Thursday press conference organized by the Afiya Center.

Over the next few days, everything seemed fine. But last Tuesday, as Rodney was walking the family’s dog outside their house, the police returned. He refused to surrender the baby when they confronted him, so they placed him under arrest, seized his keys, and used them to enter his home. There, officers took Mila from Temecia while she was alone.

https://jezebel.com/black-couple-says-texas-authorities-seized-their-newbor-1850309498

Texass.