My baby girl was SWAPPED at birth in the hospital – luckily I changed her nappy before leaving… it was nearly a disaster
A MUM has explained how she narrowly avoided a horrific disaster when her baby girl was swapped at the hospital.
Maisie gave birth to daughter Isabella last September, and explained that the tot had to stay in hospital for a little while after her birth.
"After 48 hours in the hospital, Isabella was put under a photo therapy lamp, and because of her condition, she needed to be monitored very closely," Maisie said in a video on her TikTok page.
"So her cot was put across the hall from me in a little nursery, and she was the only baby in there.
"She was being monitored every two hours by the nurses, so they definitely knew who me and Isabella were."
But it was on the second night in hospital that the "unthinkable happened".
"I'd woken up at about 3:00am, and I went into Isabella's nursery to go and say hello to her, and she was in her cot at this point, then went off to the toilet," she said.
"And on my way back, the nurses called me into the office because they had Isabella in there.
"This did raise a few little red flags, just because I was told she wasn't allowed out of her photo therapy lamp."
When Maisie questioned what had happened, the midwives told her that Isabella had been "crying loads and wouldn't settle" so they'd taken her into their office.
"My first thought was, oh, my goodness, I've just been cuddling someone else's baby in the nursery... that wasn't Isabella under the phototherapy lamp," she continued.
"But again, I was two days postpartum, and it was 3:00 in the morning, so I just took the baby off them and I went back to bed."
The midwives then came later to do Isabella's observations, and were saying "how much she looks like me".
"And again in my head, I was thinking, earlier, you were saying how much she look like her dad!" she said.
After a few hours, Maisie asked the nurses when Isabella should go under the lamp again, and was told that she should get her "undressed and ready".
"So I changed Isabella's nappy," Maisie continued.
"At this point, when I tell you, I nearly had a heart attack, I pulled down her nappy and I was greeted with a little willy.
"Isabella was definitely born a girl.
"So I honestly nearly passed out!"
While she pressed the emergency button, "nobody turned up for about a minute", at which point Maisie "saw red" and "stormed into the office".
"I was demanding for them to tell me where Isabella was, because this was not my baby," she said.
"At first, I honestly think they thought I was joking.
"But then I told them that this was a little boy, and their faces went white."
The nurses then told Maisie that she "looked identical" to the baby boy's mum, so had thought she was the other woman.
"Then for the rest of the five days I was there, it was never spoken about again," she said.
"I'm not even sure if the other mom knew what happened, which is really worrying, especially because Isabella was poorly.
"I can't imagine what would have happened if they'd given this little boy some of her medications!"
"The very real story time, of how I nearly left the maternity ward, with SOMEONE ELSE'S BABY," Maisie captioned her TikTok video.
"In the UK though the babies have the electronic tags on their ankles and name tags on their wrist," one person commented on the video.
"I'm so so sorry you experienced this trauma."
However, Maisie replied to say that their hospital didn't use those identification methods.
"Don't all babies have name bracelets/tags?" another asked.
"Yes, but Bella had kicked hers off and they don’t have babies name on them," Maisie responded.
"What happens if it was a girl? That’s so scary," a third commented.
"I can't even bear the thought," Maisie replied.
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"Their excuse makes no sense!" someone else added.
With Maisie responding: "Apparently we are both dark haired and tall…"
