Aug. 28 — The parents of a toddler in New Mexico say they have lost custody
of the 3-year-old girl because they couldn’t control her
weight.
Anamarie
Martinez-Regino weighs 120 pounds and is 3˝ feet tall — three times
heavier and 50 percent taller than an average 3-year-old, according to the
girl’s physician, Monika Mahal, who made the recommendation that she be
removed from her parents’ custody.
Miguel
Regino and Adela Martinez, Anamarie’s parents, say they’ve done everything
they can to help Anamarie and say the state has unfairly labeled them
unfit to care for her.
The New Mexico
Children, Youth and Families Department took their daughter, after a
doctor said the child’s condition was
life-threatening.
“I saw a child being pulled
away from the only parents she’s known. The only remembrance she has is
them pulling her away and us standing there crying because we felt so
useless. We couldn’t do anything, we couldn’t stop them,” Adela Martinez
told ABC’s Good Morning America.
Mahal
was out of town and unavailable for comment.
In the
Child’s Best Interest?
Irene Moody, who is in private
practice with Mahal and has examined Anamarie, said Friday the decision
was in the best interest of the child.
“I
can’t tell you what is causing her to be this large in absolute
certainty,” Moody told the Albuquerque Journal. “But we do know
that her size is life-threatening.”
Margaret
Martinez, Anamarie’s grandmother, said her granddaughter has had a weight
problem since she was 2 months old.
“She just
started growing and gaining. I mean she just kept going, you know and it’s
just been so hard. And then the first doctors, they just kept saying,
‘Stop feeding her,’ and I told them ‘I’m not feeding her what you think
I’m feeding her,’” Margaret told Good Morning America.
Anamarie has been in and out of the hospital
since she was an infant, but doctors have not been able to determine a
cause. Glandular tests have been conducted and nothing abnormal has been
found, Moody said.
But the family says the
problem has medical roots and is not caused by overeating or bad nutrition
at home.
“I can’t see anybody doing that to a
little baby,” Martinez said. “I don’t reward her with food. People think
that she’s looking for food like some kind animal and that I love her by
giving her food. I don’t do that.”
Martinez
said tests done on Anamarie a month ago found the weight hasn’t yet placed
unhealthy stress on her heart
‘I’m
Going to Fight for Her’
No state agency or law enforcement
office has accused the family of anything improper in the treatment of
Anamarie, Martinez said. But the legal papers she received Friday charged
the family with not being able to keep the child’s weight
down.
“I can’t believe that’s what they’re
thinking,” Martinez said. “How can I make her body grow the way it has?
It’s back to blaming us.”
Dan Hill, a
spokesman for the Children, Youth and Families Department, said it is
against state law for the department’s officials to comment on an open
case.
Martinez has been told she will be
allowed to visit her daughter but doesn’t know when. A custody hearing has
been set for Sept. 5, and her family says they are going to try to get her
back.
“They never did a full investigation on
us. A home visit should have been done before the child was removed,“ said
Anamarie’s father, Miguel Regino. “They asked for names and numbers of
family and friends they could check with and see what kinds of parents we
were. They never once called anybody, never once tried to check out on
us.”
”I’m going to fight for her,” Martinez
said. “What else can I do? She’s my baby. I just have to remember, I’ll
get her back someday. I’m just trying to clear my head of the last memory
I have of her being pulled kicking and screaming from that room.” 
The Associated Press contributed to this
report.
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