The Abbot Northwestern Hospital in Minnesota is facing a $50,000 lawsuit after its staff mistakenly delivered a newborn into the hands of a wrong mother for breastfeeding sometime on Dec. 3, 2012. The Allina Health staff realized they committed a mistake only after a patient who also just delivered called their attention and told them something was wrong.
Tammy Van Dyke filed the lawsuit at the Hennepin County District Court after her son Cody was placed by hospital staff in the wrong bassinet. Van Dyke told the court she has suffered emotional pain and mental injury as a result of the incident. Washington Times said the mix-up was apparently caused by technology glitches.
"We began using electronic identification bands [afterward] for the mother and infant that must be matched when returning the infant to the mother," Michelle Smith, Mother Baby Service Line clinical program director said."This helps us to assure us that the identity of the infant and the mother are matched each time."
Having one's child breastfed by another woman is not however that strange since this has been practiced the world over for quite sometime now. Some mothers who do not immediately have breast milk after giving birth allow other women to breastfeed their child. Daily Mail reported an increase in wet-nursing where out of 25 mothers said they have breastfed the child of another woman.
In the case of Van Dyke, the breastfeeding of her child by another mom was a result of a mix-up. Star Tribune said the hospital attributed the mistake to the failure of a staff to follow the prescribed procedure where the codes in the identification bands of the infant and the mother should be matched.
The hospital revised their procedure and has since started using more modern identification bands to prevent the same incident from happening again. With this high-tech bands, the nurse is able to tell that there is a match between the mother and child when a green light is displayed.
