I Was Given The Wrong Baby

They DO make mistakes but nobody will ever take you seriously because hospitals have so much prestige and power. A few years ago I had a heart attack in Melbourne, Australia where I live. The ambulance crew and the surgical team at a major public hospital saved my life by unblocking an artery and implanting a cardiovascular stent through a long tube inserted into the carotid artery in my groin. I was conscious the whole time and saw the procedure real-time on one of the monitors the surgical team was using. How many people ever get to see something like that while knockin' on heavens door? That is the end of the good news. I was left naked and shivering in a ward that was so cold I could see my own breath when I exhaled. Meal trolleys were left on the other side of the ward where I could not reach them and students lined up for their turn to poke me but did not seem to notice or care that I was cold, hungry and angry. After three days of being the cardiology 101 exhibit but otherwise ignored, I got dressed and walked out. With no cash or plastic in my pocket I walked home, about two miles. When my daughter told her mum (we're no longer together) she paid me a rare visit and said to my new partner "Sounds typical, he was always difficult."

wow, that really is something, i think the nurse must have gave me to the wrong parents when i was born, just kidding , i am glad they figured it out ,

It's good thing they notice it was the wrong baby; or you would have taken the wrong baby home which will be sad. Mothers do have connections with their babies, and yours was very strong because you felt he was wrong when you held him.

Amazing....I wonder how often this happens and no fix occurs....the new genetic tests are starting to unravel some of these mistakes.

I think we need a strategy for dealing with institutions like hospitals that are so prestigious and powerful they are above the law because they are generally above suspicion. I am not suggesting a terrorist attack or guerrilla warfare, just an organized or systematic method of bringing them to account. Maybe they are understaffed, underfunded and under resourced. Why doesn't the administration speak out about it? Are they too well paid to care about what happens at the bottom of the organizational pyramid? I don't expect politicians to fix the crisis in public health funding in Australia where I live, in fact they are part of the problem. How many promises have you heard in the last ten years that they were going to fix it? How much has changed in that time? I have no idea how or where to start working for systematic change in the government healthcare monopoly only that it will not come from the top. Great systematic societal changes always begin as a groundswell of popular opinion which various leaders subsequently attempt to claim as their own. They NEVER start it off in the first place. THAT is up to us. Now, where do we go from here? Any suggestions or ideas?

That is horrifying but at the same time remarkable the power of a mothers bond to her child, it is lucky that the mistake was rectified when you were in the hospital some mothers in the earlier days found out years later the mix up when their children were almost adults, i watched a doco on it a few years back about parents whose children were mixed up at birth, they eventually found each other when their children were 8 but did not swap them back but remarkably remained close in each others lives until the day the children are old enough to be told the truth.

Hello there, I can't imagine that happening with my little one, now that I think about it, I am glad they gave me my baby four years ago lol. These days they have to match the bracelets with the baby and the mom and also they have like a alarm device on the baby so that no one can not get into the maturity ward and steal the babies. They will not let you in if you are not on the family visit list or anything like that wow. Crazy stuff these days but I am glad that they do that for security and safety of the staff and the patients in there. They actually have a system to where you cant go in there for the double doors are locked. I am so glad you got the right baby heheehe and even if you did not think of anything, you were so willing because of the mother instinct that you wanted to help the other baby too.

that is so creepy scary!
My sister is the oldest of 5 (actually, our oldest brother died of pnemonia at 9 months before the rest of us came along) but therefore she assumed the role of bossy oldest. LOL
well anyhow dont know why she got the notion but she always thought she was adopted!! To this day we tease her about it

How well I relate to this:

I was born, they took me away to clean me up and I was put with the rest of the new-born babies into a crib in the baby-room. Soon after I was taken to my Mother to feed, along with all the other babies and that's how it was then. Anyway ... I wouldn't feed from my Mother's breast. The nurse slapped my back-side to make me cry and forced me back to her breast, but I still wouldn't feed. And then a lady in the next bed started crying and called out that the baby she had been given was not hers.

It turned out that I was given to the wrong Mother, and my real Mother was in the next bed. After a lot of tears and checks, it was discovered I had been put in the wrong cot. I was given to my real Mother after that and I immediately started to feed.

Which took me to a question, which in turn brought he here.

I have always had a bit of a fear of large breasts and I once told my Mother this. She told me of this very early event in my life and it seemed to make sense; I was slapped for not latching on to feed, a good possible reason as to why large breasts scare me … HA!


~F~

My ex-wife was not given the wrong baby. I could imagine the shock/disbelief/panic.

It would not have been possible for my ex- to get "the wrong baby." My son was born at home with a midwife in attendance in 1988.

A funny sidebar to that came later. I called the city editor of the paper, to put in a birth announcement (the little one-liner like hospitals do.) They told me that they took that information from the hospital records.

After pointing out my son was born at home, the city editor put me on hold, then came back and asked, "Is it okay if we put it under the heading 'at home'?" I assured him that would be better than something like Virginia Beach General Hospital.

'At home' came with another benefit: he was listed first.

It was good the mistake was fond. It may have been more complicated if you fed him.

Knowing right off something wasn't right, mom knows. The mistake thank goodness corrected.and the family joke continues

scary!

What a horrifying feeling. It is good that you are able to joke about it. I would have been beside myself. I'm sure the nurse was wigged out she could have lost her job.

Many, many years ago in Chicago someone walked into a hospital ward and took a baby. After that, the hospital installed electronic tags on the babies feet with the name of the mother and all of the doors to the maternity ward are electronic. Nobody comes in or out without someone buzzing them. There are cameras everywhere.