Paternity Tests to Solve Baby Swapping Case

It was just one day after the child’s birth that Sartaj, 26, a fruit vendor in Mumbai with two daughters alleged that someone had switched someone else’s daughter for his new born son.

He is threatening to take the civic body which run the hospital to court over the incident. However, administration staff for the hospital maintain that the switch never took place. Police in Oshiwara have agreed to carry out paternity tests in order to ascertain whether the baby girl’s DNA matches Sartaj’s DNA and that of his partner Reshma Banoo.

Clinic Denying the Swap

The civic body, who deny any swap occurred, have made a statement that they will wait until the police have run paternity tests before passing any further comment and results should be processed before the end of the month. Until the tests have been completed reports have surfaced that the baby girl will be living with Sartaj and his family.

The Executive Health Officer for the hospital, Dr Jairah Tanekar, denies that anything unusual has occurred. He commented that professionals at the hospital have always maintained that the child was a girl and he said that even the delivery note which was made immediately after the birth showed that Sartaj’s baby was indeed female.

He also added that because the maternity clinic is very small the chances of a mix-up are even smaller than usual. He stressed that measures were in place to prevent any confusions or ‘swaps’ from occurring and that at the time of the child’s delivery Reshma was the only woman giving birth.

Awaiting Results of Paternity Tests

According to official hospital documentation over the entire span of the day only 11 babies were born at the clinic and of these children seven were male and four were female. A baby boy was born a full four hours before Reshma gave birth, according to clinic staff.

Speaking about the situation, Sartaj described pressure being put on him to accept the baby girl as his own by senior doctors and he said that he’s unwilling to accept her unless DNA tests prove she is in fact his daughter. He says that if the undue pressure continues before results of the paternity tests come back he will take the issue to court.

He was also distressed that his wife was told to breastfeed the baby girl in the morning and to go to her incubator every two hours in order to feed her. Sartaj claims to clearly remember a nurse leaving the delivery room with his newborn baby and that it was a boy. He added that after a while two women doctors came to the room with some papers which declared the newborn a girl instead. He took issue with the discrepancy immediately but was told he was incorrect by the hospital’s nurses and doctors. Sartaj awaits DNA results to conclude the matter.