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    • Women realize they were changed at birth by the NHS after DNA testing | UK News
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    Women realize they were changed at birth by the NHS after DNA testing | UK News

    Sakege Posted on


    Newborn babies sleeping in a hospital nursery
    In the 1960s it was common practice for newborns to sleep in nurseries (File image: Getty)

    Two women only realized they had been given to the wrong mothers 55 years after they were switched at birth in an NHS hospital.

    Women were born in West Midlands in 1967, and were taken to the nursery, where it was common for newborns to sleep at that time so that their mothers could rest.

    But when they were returned, they were mixed up, and only realized after homemade DNA tests returned surprising results decades later.

    In bbc In the documentary The Gift, families spoke about the devastating consequences: one daughter said she always felt “like an imposter” growing up and a mother said her daughter no longer calls her “mom.”

    The two women, called Jessica and Claire in the documentary, although these are not their real names, are now in line to receive compensation from the NHS, the amount of which has not yet been revealed.

    These errors are extremely rare: in 2017, the NHS said in response to a Freedom of Information request that it was not aware of them having occurred.

    But the advent of simple DNA testing revealed that this was at least one case where it happened, and NHS Resolution has now accepted legal responsibility for the “terrible mistake”.

    The situation was “unique and complex,” he told bbc.


    This illustration shows a saliva collection kit for DNA testing displayed in Washington DC on December 19, 2018. - Between 2015 and 2018, sales of DNA testing kits increased in the United States and allowed websites to create a critical mass of DNA profiles. The four DNA websites that offer matching services (Ancestry, 23andMe, Family Tree DNA, My Heritage) today have so many users that it is rare for someone not to find at least one distant relative. (Photo by Eric BARADAT / AFP)ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images
    The error was discovered with home DNA tests (File image: Getty)

    Sister Bernadine and Sister Ursula care for newborn babies in a ward at St. Teresa's Maternity Hospital, Wimbledon, London, May 10, 1967. (Photo by Norman Potter/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
    Newborn babies being cared for in a London ward in 1967. At the time, babies were given paper identification bracelets (Image: Getty)

    The mistake was revealed when Claire, as well as Jessica’s brother ‘Tony’, took DNA tests, which revealed they were biological siblings.

    Confused by the result, they talked to each other about what could have led to it, which revealed the connection to the same hospital.

    Newborns in the UK are now immediately given radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, allowing their location to be tracked, meaning babies are now extremely unlikely to accidentally change.

    But before the 1980s, venues relied on handwritten labels, which left much more room for error.

    Clare was surprised by her own results, which showed no biological link to those she thought were her relatives, and mentioned a cousin she didn’t know.

    While Tony was worried about his results and feared upsetting his octogenarian mother, Claire felt more as if the results had explained something about her relationship with her family: ‘There were no similarities, neither in appearance nor in features (…) I thought, “Yes, I’m adopted.”

    She and Tony discussed what was best to do, and Tony said he would take the lead on whether she wanted to “progress this.”

    Claire was eager to meet her birth family and was very excited to meet her birth mother and feel like they had always known each other.

    He found it difficult to talk about his own childhood, which he described as “very difficult”, having grown up in “absolute poverty, homeless, often hungry and everything that entails”.

    Breaking the news to the mother who raised her, who died earlier this year, was the hardest thing she had ever faced, although she assured them that nothing would change her feelings towards her.

    Jessica’s mother Joan told the BBC she was delighted to be reunited with Claire and feel like she had gained a daughter.

    But the story was less happy for Jessica, who declined to be interviewed for the documentary and no longer calls Joan “mom.”

    Joan said: ‘I don’t care that Jessica is not my biological daughter. “She is still my daughter and always will be.”

    Claire said she now intends to spend as much time as possible with her new family, but knows it will never be enough as time that should have been “taken away” from her.

    Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

    For more stories like this, check our news page.

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