This American Life: Switched at Birth

17 years ago

While I was painting the laundry room yesterday I listened to four NPR shows played through my computer. One of them was the Switched at Birth episode of This American Life.

It was fascinating. In the 1950s, two baby girls were accidentally mixed up in the hospital. The two came from very different families. In one, this was the seventh baby. In the other, this was the longed-for second child, the only daughter. The mother of seven knew from the first day she brought the baby home that it wasn't hers, but she and her husband chose not to say anything about it. It was until 43 years later that she revealed the truth--in a remarkably tactless manner.

If you want to listen to it, the link below will take you to that show and other favorites from the series. I haven't listened to the others yet, but I plan to--starting today when I get back to my painting.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: This American Life

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Comments (17)

ruthieg__tx
17 years ago
Heck I remember all of that...It was really sad that it happened....
gwanny2three
17 years ago
That is a cool site. Thanks....I do remember that story too from somewhere. Some of the others on there sound interesting too....going to have to sit down and listen to some of them today!
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dilly_dally
17 years ago
How were they switched? Who did it? An evil doctor playing pranks? Tn incompetent nursing staff getting things screwed up? The parents being selfish?

There are lots of stories about babies being switched at the hospital. In every case I've read about the parents were the victims.
jannie
17 years ago
I've heard those switched at birth stories before. I thought about it once. If I found out my daughter wasn't really "mine", but I had raised her all her life, would I tell her? No, I'd keep up the fantasy. She's "mine" just as much as any adopted child.
susan_on
17 years ago
I think it usually happens through carelessness. When my son came home, I thought he wasn't my baby, because he had another babies' name and medical info on his bracelet (I still have that bracelet). As soon as I got home, I went to cut the bracelet off and I FREAKED!! It was one of the worst moments of my life. I yelled to my husband that we had the wrong baby!

Mike was born in a very small hospital, and there were no other babies there when he was born. 25 hours later, a little girl was born and then there were no other babies born after that. Apparently, Mike still hadn't been tagged, and when the other baby was born they tagged them both but mixed up the tags. At the time of my discovery, DH kept telling me to take his diaper off to make sure it was the boy baby that we had. I couldn't do it, I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. DH took it off and we saw that the baby was our boy.

I called the hospital and just flipped out on them. They wanted me to bring the tag to them immediately, but I wouldn't. He did have to go back for bloodwork again, as did the other baby, because the lab had recorded them by their tags, which were incorrect.

My SIL worked at that hospital then, and apparently staff were disciplined for not doing their jobs and allowing this to happen. Although my distress was short lived....MAN, let me tell you... it was intense.
alisande
Original Author
17 years ago
Oh, Susan, I can only imagine! The postpartum period is so highly charged even under the best of circumstances. Good thing you could differentiate by gender.
susan_on
17 years ago
Yes, when DH came into the room, he said "that's the baby you've been feeding all week", and I was crying, and said "I've been feeding the wrong baby all week". It was a terrible moment, and I had already been depressed in the hospital after having him. Those were the days when you used to stay for five days after having a baby, and the nurses had commented to me about my low mood. The whole thing really left me feeling really wiped out. DNA wasn't big then, so we were really lucky that there were only the two babies to worry about, and they were of different sexes.
pattico_gw
17 years ago
Susan..I can imagine that today (with all the law suits) that a person in your shoes would have sued for mental stress or something on that order....

I would have been scared to death wondering where my baby was.

Glad it was as easy to figure out for you.

patti
marilyn_c
17 years ago
I will watch it tonight.

I know someone that it happened to in real life. The guy works for a friend of mine.

He and his wife, had one child, a son. He has some kind of
health problems, and after he was almost grown, they finally diagnosed it as a genetic problem that is most common in people of Arab descent. Further testing showed that he and his wife were not the parents. So, evidently, the babies were switched at birth. However, they have opted not to do anything about it. To them, as far as they are concerned, this is their son.

I can't imagine having to deal with something like that. I think it would absolutely drive me crazy. (I mean, not that I am not already a little on the nutty side...but I wouldn't know what to do about that. I was so possessive about my baby...I didn't even like for other people to hold her...and to think someone else raised my child...and the love I have for the child I raised....it would kill me.) I don't know if they told their son the truth, but I imagine that they have. They are very religious and see things as God's will, and would never try to bring a lawsuit. However, his medical care has just about bankrupted them. I think now he is on assistance.
jannie
17 years ago
Remember the old Dick Van Dyke Show? They tackled this subject. Rob and Laura brought their baby boy Ritchie home and Rob became convinced they had the wrong baby. He phoned the parents of the other baby, who came right over. And they were black!
User
17 years ago
Interesting program. I'll be saving it.
redcurls
17 years ago
A bit off topic, but did anyone see the TV program several weeks ago where sons/daughters can test as NOT being born to a particular woman because of DNA testing and lo and behold, they have two complete sets of DNA...it was fascinating! They were called CHIMERAS.

Here's a link to the story, if interested.
http://www.katewerk.com/chimera.html
gneegirl
17 years ago
I'm sure that happened a lot more during that time. The hospital where my niece had so many babies stolen that they nearly had their credentials removed. It is a top-notch hospital, but the security thing was just starting and they wer lax about it. I don't think you could get a paper clip out of there now.

When that happens, I think it's important for a lot of reasons to 'have the talk' with the child. Legal and medical situations could really become quite complex in these cases. Life saving measures could be compromised, and in inheritance cases, nasty court cases would drive everyone crazy. The child may be subjected to paternity/or DNA tests, and may loose out on what would ordinarily be their right as a family member. Not sure, but would the parents have to become adopt the child in court? People are 'funny' when it comes to family and bloodlines.

I'm glad there is more caution these days
kathi_mdgd
17 years ago
It happened to me also,but i caught it at the hospital.It was 1959 and i had had my son,had seen him and held and fed him,then they tok him back to the nursery.The next time they brought him in and handed him to me i was talking to the other gal in the room,so did not look down for a couple of seconds.When i did look down to give him the bottle,i saw the difference.The baby they gave me was a little bald headed one,my son had a headfull of dark hair and looked like a little eskimo.
I rang for the nurse and when she came in she wasn't at all surprised,or at least didn't seem to be.
How they made that mistake i don't know as DS was wearing a beaded bracelet with my name on it.I still have his and his brothers bracelets.By the time i had my 3rd and 4th they had gone to those plastic bracelets.
Alls well that ends well!!
Kathi
phyllis__mn
17 years ago
My mother told the story of when I was born. I had very dark hair and was jaundiced. She was in a ward and another couple, Oriental, kept looking at her blonde hair and light skin, and then at me, and whispering. When they saw my dad come in, who was much darker, they were quite relieved.
ilmbg
17 years ago
Having been a Labor/Delivery nurse for many years, I can see how it would have happened several years ago- the banding/footprinting of babies was not done on such a stringent timetable, with the safeguards that are implemented today. Especially at a public/community hospital I can see it happening.
Unfortunately, with the severe cut in nursing staffing in today's world- I can see it becoming more common again.
It is usually the fault of the nurse- it is her/his job to band both mother/baby IMMEDIATELY after birth. The bands are usually made up ahead of time- all you have to do is put the 'fe'(for female), time and weight on the bands. If there is a complication with either mom or baby at birth- maternal bleeding, infant slow to start breathing, the banding gets delayed in order to care for the imminent problem. It used to be that there were always 2 nurses involved in a delivery for safety reasons- 1 for the care of mom, the other nurse for care of baby. With the cutback in nursin staff that is not always the stanard now- 1 nurse doingthe whole scenerio herself is common. Not safe- but of course the hospital could care less- it is money that the hospital cares about.
When my child was born- 1970's, the nurse tried repeatedly to bring the wrong baby at feeding time- the baby was even the wrong sex. There WERE arm bands, but she never even checked t see that the names matched. I hate to say it, but there are some lazy, sleazy nurses out there- boy could I tell you some stories......
I have often wondered how many 'switches' are really out there.
liira
17 years ago
Back in 1983 when I was having my second child, a son named David, the girl in the bed next to be also had a son she named David. One morning when we were in the nurserey bathing our babies, the nurses were teaching the first time moms how to bathe their child. Since David was my second I quickly bathe him and left. Next thing I know the girl in the next bed came into the room crying because she had the wrong baby. Her son was tiny around 6lbs with blonde hair and another lady also had son with blonde hair. She happened to notice his bracelet when bathing him because it had a different doctors name than hers. She said that she had the wrong baby all night, because when they brought the babies to feed, she noticed the baby she was nursing had a scratch on his face. The baby with the scratch wasn't hers. Good thing they noticed before they left the hospital.

This American Life: Switched at Birth

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This American Life: Switched at Birth

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