A Florida mother is concerned for her newborn’s health after the child was breastfed by another mother as a result of a nurse mix-up hours after she gave birth.
Joii Brown, of Orange Park, says her newborn son Roman Phillips was taken from her at Orange Park Medical Center to be circumcised on Thursday, a surgery that usually takes 30 minutes.
She became concerned when the baby wasn’t returned for an hour and a half.
Concerned Florida mother Joii Brown says her newborn Roman Phillips was breast-fed by the wrong mother on Thursday due to a nurse mix-up at Orange Park Medical Center
Brown says nurses took her baby to be circumcised on Thursday, a surgery that takes about 30 minutes, but she became concerned when he was gone for an hour and a half
Nurses later returned the child and confessed to the mix up saying they neglected to check the baby’s identification bracelet
Then a nurse came to her and said they had accidentally given him to the wrong mother to be breastfed without consulting his identification wristband.
‘I was really scared. It was shocking,’ Brown said to News4Jax.
The other mother had breast-fed her son for two minutes before he was taken away.
‘These two nurses walked in and they said that they took my child in another girl’s room and they mistakenly thought that was her child and not mine and she ended up breastfeeding him for two minutes,’ she said.
‘I know everybody makes mistakes, but this is something I feel like is more than just a mistake because, just looking at a wristband, that’s something really minor. All you had to do was look at the wristband and see that isn’t her child,’ she added.
Orange Park Medical Center released a statement saying: ‘Of course the hospital will do everything we can to follow the family’s wishes and support the family.’
Now Brown is concerned about any illnesses that her child might have caught by consuming another mother’s breast milk. As of Thursday evening the child was fine
The nurse mix up took place at Orange Park Medical Center in Orange Park, Florida
But now Brown is worried that her child could fall sick as a result of the mix-up. The hospital immediately ran tests upon her son following the switch and he was doing fine as of Thursday evening.
‘My main concern is that it could have been something other than breast milk. And that (it) could happen to anybody’s child,’ she said.
She added that the hospital did not identify whether the woman who breastfed her child took any medications due to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
And doctor’s told the worried mother that they wont be sure if the boy catches any illness from the breast milk until he’s older as well.
Brown says her family is speaking with lawyers for the incident.