Babies mixed up at birth in Kalaburagi, moms refuse to breastfeed them
As one of the babies was a boy, the families fought over who he belonged to, depriving the newborns of their mother's milk for a week.
Kalaburagi: Babies being exchanged at birth has provided the basis of many a Bollywood movie plot, but it happened for real at the District Government General Hospital here on December 14 thanks to the carelessness of the nursing staff.
Handing over the babies to their families, they mixed them up. As one of the babies was a boy, the families fought over who he belonged to, depriving the newborns of their mother's milk for a week. It happened soon after the hospital performed five caesarian deliveries, including those of two women, Nandamma and Tajbee almost simultaneously on the fateful day. The nurses took the babies from the operation theatre and handed over the boy to Nandamma's family and the girl to Tajbee's family, when it should have been the other way round.
About half an hour later the nurses realised their error and rushed back to Nandamma's family to tell it that the male baby was actually delivered by Tajbee. But this kicked off a row as the parents of Nandamma, who were rejoicing the birth of a grandson, were sorely disappointed at learning he was not theirs afterall and refused to accept the baby girl that the nurses tried to hand over to them. Despite much pleading, Nandamma too reportedly refused to breastfeed the girl, forcing the hospital staff to take both babies from their parents and feed them milk bought from outside in the ICU. The police was called in to speak to both families and finally on the demand of Nandamma's family, the doctors did a blood test to establish which families the babies belonged to. Even so Nandamma's family was reluctant to accept the girl. So another round of tests was done in a private hospital to satisfy it and the results proved to be the same.
But it took persuasion from the superintendent of police for Nandamma and her family to accept them and the mothers breastfed their babies nearly a week after giving birth to them.
But unwilling to accept the result as final, Nandamma's family demanded a DNA test and the hospital has now been told to do one to put an end to the confusion once and for all.