The parents of a eight-and-a-half-stone girl, aged three, say they have lost custody of their child because they could not control her weight.

Miguel Regino and Adela Martinez say authorities in New Mexico took their daughter, Anamarie Martinez-Regino, after a doctor claimed the child's condition was life-threatening.

"They dragged her out of the room kicking and screaming," a grieving Martinez said after her daughter was taken from Presbyterian Hospital on Friday. "All she's known her whole life is me, Miguel, my mother, the family. She was terrified."

Anamarie weighs 54 kilos and is 3ft 6ins tall _ three times heavier and 50% taller than an average three-year-old, according to the girl's doctor, Monika Mahal, who made the recommendation that she be removed from her parents custody.

Mahal was out of town and unavailable for comment.

But Irene Moody, a colleague of Mahal and has examined Anamarie, said Friday the decision was done 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."

Anamarie has been in and out of the hospital since she was two months' old over her weight problem, but doctors have not been able to determine a cause.

No state agency or law enforcement office has accused the family with anything improper in the treatment of Anamarie, Martinez said. But legal papers she received on 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 September 5.

"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."