A Minnesota woman who just had a baby in the hospital was given the wrong son to breasteed at the hospital.
The incident happened at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and the new mother brestfed the child before it was discovered by doctors that there was a mixup, reported The Daily Mail.
The woman whose child was given to another mother Tammy Van Dyke said to the Daily Mail that she left her son in the nursery to get some rest when she awoke the next morning with two people telling her that the baby had been placed in the wrong area and was given to antoher woman. She said to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "'And she looked at the ID band on his ankle and realised that she had the wrong child, that she had my son," speaking about the other woman.
The nurse had reportedly failed to look at the child's ID badge on his wrist to the mothers. She added to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "My advice would be - and I'm sure this is a rare occurrence and never happens - is don't put your baby in the nursery because you don't know what could happen. You think you're going to get your baby back and you might not. I'm very lucky that I did get him back and everything was OK."
Van Dyke received an apology letter from the hospital. Abbott Hospital said in a statement, "While hospital procedures require staff to match codes on the infant's and mother's identification bands in order to preent incidents like this, it appears these procedures were not followed in this case."
A spokeswoman for the hospital, Gloria O'Connell said to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "As far as we know, this has never happened before at Abbott. Apparently, somebody didn't follow procedure, so that's what we're trying to figure out," she said. "And there will be consequences."
As a precaution the baby was tested for HIV and hepatitis, two diseases which can be transmitted via breastfeeding. Livescience.com reported that the baby has tested negative for both diseases.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
