MRSA and Child Custody: Can Visitation Be Denied?

In most jurisdictions, the custodial parent must prove that visitation poses a demonstrable risk of psychological or physical harm to the child in order to deny visitation. In cases involving contagious diseases, that risk must usually be linked to the child.

For example, if the other parent can show that the visitation parent's MRSA infection:

- is highly likely to be spread to the child,

- is untreatable and incurable,

- the child has a medical condition which means MRSA infection poses an increased risk to them,

- the visitation parent has repeatedly failed to take medical advice about how to minimize the risk of spreading MRSA, or

- they and their family do not take sufficient precautions to prevent the child from coming into contact with MRSA

then they may have grounds to deny visitation until such a time as the medical risk has passed.

However, medical risks tend to be temporary and the general principles of the best interests of the child still apply. The parent seeking to deny visitation usually has to prove that the risk is so great that the child's normal developmental needs for contact with the visitation parent are outweighed by the risk. Therefore, denying visitation in such circumstances is likely to be difficult unless there is a pattern of repeated non-compliance with medical advice or a specific medical concern regarding your child.