Family court reform

Custody at birth, unmarried parents

Before anyone goes to court, who has custody of a child born to unmarried parents? This is a different question from the equal parenting time presumption above, which only operates once a case has been filed.

Both parents by statute here means: A statute positively gives both parents custody at birth regardless of marital status. Reviewed 2026-10-12.
A state is classified only when its own statute has been read and is cited below. Everything else is marked "Not yet reviewed" - which is NOT a finding that the state has no default rule. Secondary summaries of these statutes proved unreliable during this survey, including one that attributed a Texas-only term to Maryland, so no state is classified from a summary.