In the Interest of M.H., Minor Child

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0915
Filed September 18, 2024

IN THE INTEREST OF M.H.,
Minor Child,

T.H., Mother,
Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Appanoose County, Richelle

Mahaffey, Judge.

A mother appeals the removal and adjudication of her son as a child in need

of assistance. AFFIRMED.

Monte McCoy, Centerville, for appellant mother.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Tamara Knight, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

Julie De Vries of De Vries Law Office, PLC, Centerville, attorney and

guardian ad litem for minor child.

Considered by Tabor, C.J., and Chicchelly and Sandy, JJ.
2

TABOR, Chief Judge.

A mother challenges the removal of her infant son, his adjudication as a

child in need of assistance (CINA), and the juvenile court’s dispositional order

continuing his placement outside her home. The mother’s claims about the initial

removal are moot. As for the adjudication and disposition, clear and convincing

evidence in the record supports the juvenile court’s findings. 1 So we affirm.

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings

M.H. was born in late December 2023 at the home of an Amish midwife in

Davis County. The juvenile court ordered an emergency temporary removal of

M.H. from his mother’s custody after the Iowa Department of Health and Human

Services received an anonymous report that she was using methamphetamine and

chose that birthing option to avoid mandatory reporting concerns at a hospital. The

reporter also described M.H. as needing oxygen at birth.

The department was familiar with the mother because she had her rights

terminated for two older children based on substance use. At the request of child

protection workers, one week after his birth, law enforcement located M.H. and his

mother at the home of her adult son in Bremer County. Law enforcement believed

that both the adult son and other residents of that home were methamphetamine

users. When the child protection worker arrived to remove M.H., the mother was

1
We review CINA proceedings de novo. In re J.S., 846 N.W.2d 36, 40
(Iowa 2014). In that review, we are not bound by the juvenile court’s fact findings;
but we give them weight. Id. “Our primary concern is the child[ ]’s best interests.”
Id. The State must prove its CINA allegations by clear and convincing evidence.
Iowa Code § 232.96(2) (2024).
3

“wailing and inconsolable.” In fact, the mother was so distraught that the worker

could not carry on a conversation or interact with her.

Once M.H. was placed in foster care, the foster mother reported he showed

signs of drug withdrawal, including tremors, difficulty feeding, “excessive diarrhea,”

and “jerky muscle movements.” Despite those signs, M.H.’s mother denied having

used methamphetamine before his birth.

The State filed its CINA petition when M.H. was ten days old. In March, the

juvenile court held a hearing on that petition. The mother testified that she chose

an Amish house to have M.H. because she “didn’t have really a good experience

[giving birth] in a bigger hospital.” She acknowledged M.H. received oxygen after

his birth but testified that it was “just to be safe” and “he didn’t really need it.” She

denied using controlled substances and said the prior terminations of her parental

rights were “not due to drugs.” She also acknowledged she had been diagnosed

with bipolar disorder but said she no longer took medication for the condition. She

expressed uncertainty about her other mental-health diagnoses.

The juvenile court did not find the mother’s testimony credible and decided

she was “in severe need” of substance-use and mental-health treatment. Given

the mother’s situation, the court found “substantial evidence that the child’s life or

health would be in imminent danger if returned” to her custody. Because of that

imminent danger, the court found that the need to remove M.H. from his home

outweighed “the potential harm of removal, including but not limited to physical,

emotional, social, and mental trauma resulting from removal.” See Iowa Code
4

§ 232.95(6)(a). The court adjudicated M.H. as a CINA under Iowa Code sections

232.96A(3)(b) and 232.96A(14).2

Two months later, the juvenile court held a dispositional hearing. The court

learned from the department that the mother was living in Minnesota. The

department described the accommodations as “a shed in the backyard” of her

stepfather’s house. The mother had not completed an updated substance-use

evaluation or engaged in treatment. The court also found that the mother was

struggling with her mental health and experiencing “delusional and paranoid

thought patterns.” As a result, she had trouble keeping track of scheduled visits

with M.H. On this record, the court found that returning M.H. to the mother’s

custody would be contrary to his welfare. The mother appeals the CINA

adjudication and dispositional orders.3

II. Analysis

A. Removal

The mother starts her petition by confronting the “assertions of an

anonymous reporter” included in the application for temporary removal. She

contends those assertions were not verified or corroborated before they prompted

the court’s ex parte decision to remove M.H. from her custody. The mother raised

similar concerns about the anonymous reporter in the juvenile court. The child

protection worker testified that the department received the report about M.H.

2 The mother’s attorney tried to appeal the CINA adjudication order. On its own
motion, our supreme court determined that it was not a final order. The court
treated the notice as an application for interlocutory appeal and denied it.
3 The adjudication order noted that the mother had not provided the department

with the name of M.H.’s father and directed her to do so. But our record does not
show that paternity has been established yet.
5

through the child abuse hot line. 4 The worker was not concerned about the

anonymous nature of the report, explaining:

Lots of people call in to the department anonymously because they
don’t want anyone to spend any time trying to identify who the
reporter is. They don’t want to put themselves in danger if that
person should identify who they would be by something we might put
in there that somehow makes them identify that person.

In that vein, the legislature tried to strike a balance between providing “the

greatest possible protection to victims or potential victims of abuse through

encouraging the increased reporting of suspected cases of abuse” and avoiding

“the harm caused by a child’s removal” from the child’s family. Id. § 232.67. When

it comes to M.H.’s initial removal, we cannot do that balancing. As the State points

out in its response to the petition on appeal, the mother’s claims about the initial

removal order are now moot because of the subsequent dispositional order. See

In re A.M.H., 516 N.W.2d 867, 871 (Iowa 1994) (“We cannot go back in time and

restore custody based on alleged errors in the initial removal order.”). We address

the child’s continued removal as part of our discussion of the CINA adjudication

and disposition.

B. Adjudication and Disposition

The mother next argues the State did not offer clear and convincing

evidence to support either ground for the CINA adjudication. She contends the

juvenile court “erroneously relied” on the allegations of the anonymous child abuse

reporter to justify M.H.’s CINA adjudication. She acknowledges her “prior history”

4 Iowa is one of at least forty states to allow the public to report child abuse
anonymously. See Dale Margolin Cecka, Abolish Anonymous Reporting to Child
Abuse Hotlines, 64 Cath. U.L. Rev. 51, 54 (2014) (explaining that callers need not
identify themselves or the reasons for the report).
6

but questions the court’s finding of imminent harm without corroboration of her

current methamphetamine use.

To adjudicate M.H. as a CINA, the court relied on these two grounds: “The

child has suffered or is imminently likely to suffer harmful effects as a result of . . .

[t]he failure of the child’s parent . . . to exercise a reasonable degree of care in

supervising the child.” Iowa Code § 232.96A(3)(b). And: “The child’s parent . . .

suffers from a mental incapacity, a mental condition, imprisonment, or drug or

alcohol abuse that results in the child not receiving adequate care or being

imminently likely not to receive adequate care.” Id. § 232.96A(14).

In their responses to the petition on appeal, both the State and M.H.’s

guardian ad litem (GAL) point to evidence showing M.H. was likely to suffer harmful

effects if he remained in the mother’s custody. See J.S., 846 N.W.2d at 41 (broadly

defining “harmful effects” as forces impacting “the physical, mental or social

welfare of a child”). Their responses note that after choosing a non-traditional

delivery location, the mother did not seek traditional medical care for M.H. after he

had breathing issues at birth. Instead, she moved in with her adult son, whose

home did not offer a healthy environment for an infant. When child protection

workers located her, she refused their initial request to participate in drug testing.

And when she did test, the sample was diluted, which caused the juvenile court to

believe that she had tampered with it.

The mother also struggled with her mental health but sought no treatment.

Her actions at the removal were erratic. The juvenile court viewed these new

incidents against the backdrop of the mother’s “lengthy history” with the

department. In two prior cases, the mother’s rights were terminated based on
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“unaddressed methamphetamine use and mental health issues.” In those cases,

she took the children from Iowa to Minnesota to avoid department intervention.

Meanwhile, M.H. exhibited signs of drug withdrawal while in foster care.

And earlier, the mother had declined to allow M.H.’s hair to be tested for drug

exposure. Faced with these facts, the juvenile court did not have to wait for greater

harm to befall M.H. before adjudicating him as a CINA. See id. at 43 (citing case

law supporting a “liberal interpretation” of “imminently likely” harm in the CINA

context).

Clear and convincing evidence supported the court’s finding that M.H. was

“imminently likely to suffer harmful effects” from the mother’s failure to exercise a

reasonable degree of care in supervising him and that continued removal from her

custody was warranted. Iowa Code § 232.96A(3)(b). Ample evidence also

supported the court’s finding that the mother suffered from a mental condition and

substance use that led to M.H. “not receiving adequate care or being imminently

likely not to receive adequate care.” See Iowa Code § 232.96A(14). On this

record, the juvenile court properly concluded that the child remained in need of

assistance and could not yet be returned to his mother’s custody.

AFFIRMED.