A snafu at a Minnesota hospital this week resulted in a mom breastfeeding the wrong baby, causing awkwardness and emotional distress for all involved.
The mistake occurred after a baby boy at Minneapolis’ Abbott Northwestern Hospital was placed in the wrong bassinet in the nursery, ABC News reports.
As a precaution, the baby breastfed by the wrong mom was tested for HIV and hepatitis, and will receive the tests every three months for the next year.
The baby has so far tested negative for both diseases.
If a child is accidentally fed breast milk from a woman who is not his mother, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends HIV testing.
The CDC adds that the risk of HIV transmission through breast milk is small, and the virus is not known to spread through a single bout of breastfeeding.
Still, the CDC recommends women with HIV should not breastfeed their children. Neither hepatitis B nor C can be spread through breastfeeding.
The baby’s mother,Tammy Van Dyke, told ABC she could not stop crying on the way home from the hospital because of the surprising event that transpired.
The incident also left the mother who was accidentally breastfeeding the baby distraught, as she had to wait before hospital staff found her own baby.
The hospital gave Van Dyke a letter expressing its sincerest apologies for the infant mix-up, and said it would pay for the baby’s tests going forward.