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New mum shares how she anxiously waited for test results after her newborn baby was mistakenly fed another mother’s breastmilk.

In the news today a mum claims a staff member at a private hospital in Sydney accidentally switched her breastmilk and fed her new baby girl someone else’s.

“After paying thousands of dollars for private care, you expect more,” the mother told news.com.au.

The new mum said she has gone public with her story “so others can be aware of the possibilities of medical mistakes and be more vigilant themselves and not always trust your caregivers”.

She said she was particularly anxious because breastmilk can carry diseases such as HIV, which is why donated milk is usually screened.

“I was in my room and I was changing a nappy and the nurse came and give me milk, she had it all ready in a bottle ready to feed. We gave it to her [the baby], then I stopped halfway in between the bottle to burp her and that’s when I saw on the label, there was a different obstetrician’s name.”

“I was like, ‘wait a minute, that’s not my doctor’s name’, and that’s when I looked at the label further and saw that it was for a different person, different address, different name, wasn’t mine.

“I tried to get someone to come back into the room and when I finally got the nurse to come back I told her, ‘that’s not mine’.
“She went, ‘oops’ — and tries to take it away and leave. I said, ‘well no, not oops, she’s actually drank some of this, what do we do now’?

“I just don’t know how someone can go to the fridge and not even check the label and then give it to someone.”

“When they gave us the wrong milk there was nothing for us to look at and go, ‘oh that’s not ours’.

“Everything looked the same, it was given to us and told it was ours.”

“Part of the reason why I was so upset was not only the mistake that happened but after I left hospital the way that it was handled was very poor and I was constantly having to chase the hospital for updates,” she said.

Thankfully all the test results, including hepatitis C, B and HIV, came back negative.

How would you feel if this happened to you?

Share your comments below. 

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  • it should be a standard procedure that the nurse reads the information on the label just to confirm that it is yours. they do this when they bring the baby back to you if they have had any tests done while you weren’t present

    Reply

  • It was an accident, probably could have been handled better though

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  • I think the nurse could have said more rather than “oops!” – I hope this made the hospital rethink they way they deal with patients breast milk. Maybe they should employ more staff so the ones that currently work rosters are not overworked and making errors

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  • Like medications, bottles of breastmilk should be double checked.
    I doubt they test breastmilk if it is being given to your own baby.

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  • The hospital and the nurse in particular could have shown a bit more remorse.

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  • Personally I wouldn’t be too upset about this.
    My daughter had donor milk by choice and I’m glad that she had. Now I know donor milk is now a days screened, but in the early days it wasn’t and babies were fed straight from another mums breast or were fed milk straight from the cow.

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  • A huge mistake to make,very wrong!

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  • I would feel sick. This is not the treatment you expect in a private hospital. Luckily that all the tests turned out negative. The hospital should have handled this situation a lot better!!

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  • There was a fridge in the room with baby, so my milk was placed into the fridge straight away, labellled. When the milk was heated up, it was grabbed out of that fridge (not shared with anyone else) and the midwife always confirmed for safety that it was indeed my milk as per the label. FYI this was in a public hospital. I can understand the Mums concerns, but seriously concerned about the quality of treatment & care at other hospitals. Not just this but other things.

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  • I can absolutely understand her concern. They’re supposed to check these things very carefully because of the risk of disease etc!

    Reply

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