The family had hoped to have the little one home over the weekend after winning an appeal against a Children’s Panel ruling which placed the child in the care of the local authority.

“Because the child is not very well, we think probably it will be nearer the end of the week before she is out of hospital,” said the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

“The baby has some sort of infection, although it’s not something to be concerned about and the staff are doing a great job.

“We are going up to the hospital every day to see her. We’re allowed to go in and out as we please, but with having access to our other children we have to include that as well.”

The family’s other six children remain in care for a number of issues, including obesity, and the father said he was meeting his solicitor today to discuss ongoing efforts to have them returned.

Dundee City Council has repeatedly stated that it “could not comment on individual cases,” but has also insisted that a child’s weight would not be the only reason for any decision to take him or her into care.

Meanwhile, a former Dundee official has called for greater understanding from politicians, the public and parents in controversial instances where children are removed from the family home.

Fred McBride, of the Association of Directors of Social Work, said a conversation was needed “in broad terms” about where the threshold for removing a child should be.

“This is about more clearly defining it so that families, the public, the professionals, the politicians and the newspapers are clearer about what can be expected,” he said.

“That’s what our conversation should be about — a framework for supporting decision-making. We need to define the circumstances in which the state should intervene and remove children. We have to get to grips with it.”

In Dundee there has been criticism of the decision by social workers to take the “fat family” children into care, with an academic saying it was “scandalous”.

Social workers and other agencies have also been criticised for not intervening to remove tragic Dundee toddler Brandon Muir from the home his drug addict mother shared with the man who was to brutally kill him.

Mr McBride, head of children’s services in Dundee at the time of Brandon’s death and now working in Aberdeen, also cautioned over a return to group care.

He said, “In Scotland we are removing more children into public care than ever before. If we continue we will reach a point where we run out of foster carers, and see a return to group care for the very young children that we saw 40 years ago — an orphanage situation. God forbid we return to that.”