Texas couple reunited with baby swapped at birth

[jeaniebueller]

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www.nbcnews.com/news/world/texas-couple-reunited-baby-swapped-birth-el-salvador-n423266

A Texas-based couple has been reunited with their baby who they say was swapped by workers at a hospital in El Salvador shortly after being born.

Richard Cushworth and his wife Mercedes Casanellas believe the child might have been sold to traffickers because of his fairer skin, local media reported.

Prosecutors in El Salvador opened an investigation last week after the Dallas couple became suspicious and performed a DNA test on the baby they were handed by doctors back in May.





The correct baby was identified after officials ordered the parents of four children born at the same hospital in San Salvador, to allow DNA testing of their infants, the newspaper La Prensa Grafica reported. One of the four tested positive for Casanellas' family, it said.

Earlier this week, Casanellas, who is from El Salvador, and Cushworth, who is originally from England, made a desperate appeal for their child to be returned, saying it was "a life-long injury that's very, very deep, and it's horrible." The obstretrician-gyneocologist who delivered her baby was formally placed under investigation on suspicion of theft, La Prensa Grafica reported, but it was not clear if he is suspected of any wider plot to sell the child.

Casanellas, 39, was earlier seen chasing the doctor outside a court hearing, shouting in Spanish: "Where is my son, doctor? Where is my son?"





The couple had traveled from Dallas to San Salvador for the birth, which occurred at a private hospital.

Francisco Meneses, lawyer for the couple, told reporters: " We don't have anything against the people who were involved during the [baby's] birth, but we want all these people to put their hands on their hearts because ... it's very important for them to tell us what happened."

The return of the children to their correct parents was confirmed to reporters by chief prosecutor Luis Martinez who called the episode a "painful drama," La Prensa Grafica reported.

[Deleted]

I wonder why they would leave Dallas for a birth in El Salvador.

Weird story, but glad it worked out for them. I can only imagine the disaster I would have been if I'd thought I had the wrong baby. Thank goodness my kid totally has my eyes.

[ttt]

Sept 8, 2015 10:27:18 GMT -5 @kcpokergal said:

I wonder why they would leave Dallas for a birth in El Salvador.

Weird story, but glad it worked out for them. I can only imagine the disaster I would have been if I'd thought I had the wrong baby. Thank goodness my kid totally has my eyes.

I thought that too, but I see she's from there so she probably wanted to be near family.

So glad they were able to fix it. I can't imagine.

[downtoearth]

I read this article... it tells a little more, but I still was wondering what happened to the baby that they ended up taking home? Also it sounds like they are missionaries and her husband had work out of the country for a month before birth, so she went close to family to be on bed rest in the hospital during that time.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/08/parents-in-el-salvador-fear-their-child-has-been-swapped-for-another

A British man and his Salvadoran wife who claimed that their baby was swapped for another shortly after birth in a private hospital in El Salvador have been reunited with their lost son.

Richard Cushworth and Mercedes Casanellas, both Christian missionaries working in Latin America, had feared that their son was snatched so he could be sold to child traffickers. They had spoken out after a doctor who was involved in the birth appeared in court after authorities in the Central American state arrested him.


Late on Monday, El Salvador’s attorney general’s office said the couple’s real son had been located after DNA testing on the babies of other new mothers. Video footage from local TV appeared to show the moment that they were then reunited.

Prosecutor Gen Luis Martinez said the babies of two couples had been accidentally mixed up.

Earlier, Casanellas told reporters in El Salvador: “I have a beautiful baby at home. It’s not mine and maybe there’s another mother suffering the same as I am and perhaps I have her baby.”

On Friday, she confronted the doctor after he appeared in court, and attempted to snatch a covering he had put over his head.


The Cushworths’ son was due to be born on 20 June, according to a report in Mail Online, which said the husband had departed for a month-long trip in mid-May in order to be present at the birth. But his wife was told by Dr Alejandro Guidos that she would need an emergency caesarean section five weeks ahead of her due date.

Pictures taken by a friend of Casanellas show a child with a yellow clip around his umbilical cord. But the child that was handed back to her had a white clip around his umbilical cord that she and her husband think belongs to a different hospital.

“We had the footprints taken of my child when he was born for his birth certificate,” she told Mail Online. “Later when I went back to change a mistake on the document I noticed that the prints on his certificate were different to the ones we had – they were smaller and a different pattern.”

Casanellas claimed Guidos had been unusually close to her during her pregnancy, adding: “One night in January we feared that I was about to have a miscarriage, and he stayed with me the whole night, stayed by my bedside and cared for me.

“I considered that very nice of him, very professional, and it was not until I told the investigators about this after the swap that they told me that this is not how it is done. He was also the only person who knew that my husband was British and that he would be out of the country for one month.”