I don’t think I would have cared that much…except for Snoopyfan’s scenario about losing your kid later on when someone comes to claim him…
maybe I’m a rotten mom, but I don’t know if I could have identified my child properly right after he was born, anyway.
I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that nearly everybody in the room will be focused on her as the mommy, so I’d better damn well be focused on our baby as soon as it leaves the womb.
I kinda feel like I got a coach’s pep talk before the big game.
“Now keep your eyes on the ball, son!”
I would be absolutley horrified if this had happened to either of my children. This leads me to wonder though, what kind of nurse would let this happen? Was she not thinking of the possible consequences of her actions? Maybe that nurse should never be allowed to work in anursery again.
There was a tragic case in NZ where the babies were swapped at birth by mistake and 12 years later one child died of cancer. It came out that the child was not genetically the parents and they sued for the return of their ‘real’ child. I cannot imagine what thought process one would go through after raising a child as your own, losing that child and then trying to get the other child back. And what the other family would go through is beyond bearing.
IIRC the court records were sealed and it never came out who got to keep the living child. I gave birth in the hospital where the swap had happened but I don’t know how thorough they were as my baby never left my sight. They didn’t have a central nursery – rooming in was standard as it is in most NZ maternity wards now.
as well as watching them put it on, i always checked my son’s wristband myself.
Another father checking in. This would be the biggest possible deal - switching babies is one of the worst mistakes a hospital can make, and as mentioned before breast-feeding the wrong baby can have detrimental health effects that the hospital would be 100% responsible for causing. Besides, this opens a whole can of “what ifs” and exposes pretty lax procedures in this maternity unit. What if the wrong baby had been given a circumcision? What if the wrong baby had been given an unnecessary medicine? How many switches happen there that don’t get caught?
Granted, the parents should have checked the ID band on the baby (we did, even though we recognized our son), but the hospital had a legal obligation to make sure everything was done right. Legal obligation trumps common sense every time…and hiring a lawyer is appropriate in this situation. I’d probably be tempted to contact the other family and hire the same lawyer to represent both sets of parents for any appropriate legal actions.
I would be furious, and I would sue.
I was afraid of this happening to Loren. I always have trouble recognizing new faces and though I nursed my daughter immediately after I gave birth and was not on any drugs for the birth, I would not have recognized her if I had to pick her out of a lineup. I told my husband that he was never to let her out of his sight. KellyM would take care of me if need be, but his job after Loren came out was to stick with her, keep her in sight at all times. (That and to punch the doctor if he started to tug on my umbilical cord and I screamed. I read one too many stories about impatient doctors pulling the cord, placenta, and uterus right out. )
TeaElle is right about breastmilk. I would also have been livid if someone had fed her anything at all except my milk.
IIRC that there are a few different general types of mother’s milk, and it needs to match to the right baby.
Also previously mentioned several times that breast milk is a serious vector for infection.
I would be really furious and would most likely sue. Heck, in the local Chinese hospital china bambina had wrist tags and the nurse each and every time confirmed the name. although as Hokkaido Brit pointed out, she was the only Amer-Asian babie and couldn’t be mistaken.