South Carolina Family Law Blog : Spartanburg Divorce Lawyer & Attorney : Stevens-MacPhail Law Firm : South Carolina Family Law Serving Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, Hilton Head Island

Childhood obesity can lead to a host of health problems, including Type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, hypertension, high cholesterol, sleep apnea and orthopedic problems.  Experts have begun to debate whether removing morbidly obese children from their parents will boost those children's chances for a healthier life.  

Other experts say that parents' share of responsibility in weight gain isn't always easy to judge and that it's unfair to blame solely the parents.  These experts point to other factors that influence a child's weight, such as genetic predisposition, socioeconomic status, environmental factors, and even children sneaking extra food behind their parents' backs.

You can read much more here about the debate over whether the State should remove obese children from their parents.  

Source: "Should Parents of Obese Kids Lose Custody?" by Gaelle Faure, published at Time.com.

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In child custody cases, each party's parenting skills are frequently a key issue.  One particularly important area in which this can be seen is with regard to the children's medical care and health issues.  For instance, parents can (and often do) argue over whether a child was taken to the doctor too much, too little, or too late.

For parents who no longer live together, it is very important that they keep each other informed of issues pertaining to a child's health, education, and welfare.  Many Court Orders now routinely include this requirement because Judges believe it to be in the children's best interest.  With regard to healthcare issues in particular, it is very important that parents exchange this type of information in a timely manner.  The failure to do so could give rise to an action seeking a change of custody.

Most reasonable parents would agree that they should immediately notify each other when their child is taken to the Emergency Room for any reason.  CNN recently published a helpful article that discusses situations in which a child should be taken to the Emergency Room, including the following:

• Neck stiffness or rash with fever
• Fever in a newborn over 100.4 F
• Head injury with loss of consciousness, confusion, headache or vomiting
• Burns if larger than your child's palm, if deep or discolored, or if caused by a chemical
• Severe abdominal pain

Source:  "But is it really an emergency? When to take a child to the ER" by Elizabeth Cohen, published at CNN Health.

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As you probably know, Britney Spears shaved her head this past week.  Observers speculate that one reason she may have done so is to attempt to avoid a hair strand drug test in her ongoing custody case with her estranged husband, Kevin Federline. 

I mention this not because I plan to start covering celebrity breakdowns and divorces on this blog, but rather because the subject of drug tests comes up quite frequently in Family Court cases.  Slate.com published an article which serves as a good introduction to the subject of hair strand drug tests.  For instance, consider the following facts from this article:

• Drug testing is becoming increasingly common in custody battles as a way to prove a parent unfit or irresponsible.
• A bundle of hair about the thickness of a pencil can tell chemists what specific drugs someone has used and provide a rough timeline of when she used them.
• Narcotics like cocaine, meth, ecstasy, and PCP introduce toxins to the bloodstream that are then incorporated into each hair as it forms in the follicle.
• Urine and blood only retain evidence of these toxins for a week or so, but hair can hold on to them indefinitely. 
  
• Head hair grows about half an inch every month, so a woman with shoulder-length hair carries around a two-year record of her drug use.
• Drug tests can be done on any body hair—armpit, leg, back, pubic—but head hair is preferred because of its length and relative cleanliness.  Although pubic hair may be long enough to provide a few months' worth of information, it is less reliable because of its likely contamination from sweat and urine. 
• Hair from any part of the body might become unreliable if it came into external contact with drugs—for example, if someone spent time in a room filled with crack cocaine smoke. Test results can also be affected by hair color or texture. Studies have shown that a dark strand will take up drug residues more readily than a light one—a peculiarity that has prompted some critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, to deem the practice racist.
• Hair testing for illicit drugs started in the late 1970s, but the practice did not catch on commercially until about 15 years ago, when improved technology allowed for more-accurate results. 
  
• When administered correctly, hair tests are about as accurate as urinalysis.  However, there are still no federal standards for hair testing.

Source:  "Was Britney's Hair Full of Drugs? Shaving Your Head to Beat the Narcs." by Samantha Henig, published at Slate.com.

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