MIX-UP OF BABIES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21219, 16 September 1940, Page 5

MIX-UP OF BABIES

BLOOD TEST TAKEN On May 1, 1939, two babies were born in a Queensland hospital. It is now alleged, 15 months later, that on leaving the hospital the mothers took the wrong children. One mother, Mrs Thomas Tarnmine, is still satisfied that she has her own baby, but the other is convinced that a mistake was made because, she says, her baby bears a striking resemblance to the family of the first mother. The two families agreed that blood tests should be taken. These showed that a mistake had been made at the hospital. An official inquiry is to be held into the mix-up. Mrs Tnmmine is “ dazed, bewildered, and bi’oken-hearted ” at having to hand to another woman the baby she had thought was hers. “Exchanging babies after 15 months is worse than dying,” she said. “ I had always longed for a brown-eyed baby, and when they put one into my arms at the hospital I could have cried for joy. Now I have to have a blue-eyed baby after all. I can’t understand my new daughter’s talk. My elder daughter does not want to play with her. The other one was my baby. Now I have to have this one. The baby that I have lost grew into a lovely child, and won a beauty contest when she was five months old. She was a real mother’s girl, but this new one is a man’s baby. She would rather be nursed by my husband than by me. The other baby was bigger, so we had to pass over all my lovely baby clothes.”

Mrs Angus Wakefield, the other mother, explained how the mistake was discovered. “My mother went to Mrs Tamm in e and said she feared a mistake had been made,” said Mrs Wakefield. “ A doctor had told us that the baby Mrs Tammine had bore a striking resemblance to the Wakefields, and that our baby was very like the Tammines. The blood test

proved beyond doubt that an error had been made.” The husbands of both women are employed at the Mount Isa lead mines in Central Queensland.