"While I was waiting for you someone else was bonding with my child," Shatiesha Brown said.
Aniya Victoria was born January 31 at Brookdale Hospital. Shatiesha Brown, Aniya's mother, had dangerously high blood pressure and was told she couldn't be with her daughter for the first 24 hours while doctors monitored the 32 year old for seizures. But according to Shatiesha and her lawyer, Anaya wasn't resting in the nursery. She was bonding, breastfeeding and taking family photos with another mother.
"How could you be so incompetent to mix up a baby," she said.
Shatiesha said 18 hours after her daughter was born, a doctor came into her room to tell her there had been a terrible mistake. Another new mother at Brookdale, also with the first initial 'S' and the last name Brown, was given Aniya as her own, despite numbered ID bracelets to prevent this kind of mistake.
Attorney Michael Lamonsoff says Brookdale hospital was negligent.
"There are so many ways to prevent this from happening and the hospital failed in every way," he said.
According to Shatiesha, the mistake was discovered when relatives from both Brown families began arguing at the nursery window, everyone pointing at Aniya and saying 'that's our baby.' For this mother of three, the hardest part was realizing that after breastfeeding with another mother, Aniya was rejecting her own mother's milk. Against Shatiesha's wishes, her daughter is now on formula.
'The bond that you have when you breastfeed your child, that's everything," she said as she broke down in tears.
Aniya is a healthy baby. Her family is planning a lawsuit.
A Brookdale Hospital spokesman said they can't comment on cases with pending litigation.
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