while can't speak to this specific case, i saw a show that followed mother's with IQ's in the borderline MR range (70-75) and the impairment was significant enough to interfere with parenting. the mothers were coached on how to parent and a coach visited every week. but in one case the mother was pulling the hair of her preschool age daughter and refusing to acknowledge her when she was upset with the child.

when there were 2 parents with the same low IQ they seemed better able to effectively deal with the stresses and moment-to-moment issues of parenting than single mothers did. parenting is difficult and i don't think it's necessarily outrageous that this woman's child was taken. just because the mom looks "typical" doesn't mean she functions that way.

I agree with lickety. This woman is essentially slightly retarded. She *might* be able to take care of a normal baby, but hers was born at 27 weeks and will be so much harder to handle, even for a person of normal intelligence and abilities. Ideally, the British CPS (don't know what it's called) would give the woman a chance first, but with a baby with a more delicate medical situation, something really bad could happen if the woman didn't care for her properly.

*sigh* I tried posting a comment, but I used the "r word" so it got flagged

Yeah there's more to this story for sure.