A Maternity Ward Nightmare

A switch of Israeli babies stirs sorrow and lawsuits

"Solomon's famous judgment," sighed one attorney, "was easy compared with the complications of this case." True enough. Solomon, after all, had to decide the rightful mother of only one baby in the biblical dispute between the two harlots. Last week, after two months of tearful, rending drama that riveted their entire nation, Israeli officials settled an even more tangled baby case.

The problem began last June at Haifa's Rambam Hospital when two 21-year-old women gave birth some 24 hours apart. One had twin girls, the other a girl by caesarean section. Two or three days later, one of the twins and the other baby girl were accidentally switched, apparently by immigrant nurses who had trouble reading the Hebrew name tags. An observant supervisor quickly returned the babies to their correct mothers. But the women were worried. One complained that the baby given her did not look familiar, while the caesarean baby's mother said that the baby she now had could not have been hers because it had marks indicating a normal birth. A doctor agreed, and there was a third switch.

Deeply embarrassed, the hospital ordered several blood tests. But by the time the results were in, confirming that two of the three babies were still in the wrong arms, mothers and babies had already been home for six weeks. The women demanded more conclusive proof. So out went a call to Dr. Chaim Brautbar, a specialist in immunogenetics. He promptly began tissue-typing all the principals: babies, parents and grandparents. In such tests, scientists search the blood for small snatches of cellular material and compare it in order to establish genetic links between individuals.

By now emotions were so high that even Brautbar's female lab technicians burst into tears when he announced that two babies were indeed in the wrong homes. The scientific Solomon patiently explained the tests to the mothers with color charts, but they remained distraught. Said one: "I know you are logically right, but if I talk to you from the bottom of my heart, it's difficult for me to accept what you say." Added the mother of the twins: "It sounds so easy going through a change, but only a mother knows the meaning of such a thing."

At 1:30 a.m. that morning, an hour chosen to protect the anonymity of the deeply distressed families, the babies were switched for the fourth and final time. Now a government committee will try to answer a troubling question: Why haven't Israeli hospitals taken to foot-printing babies at birth, a virtually foolproof method of identification used in almost all advanced nations?

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