Couples Give Birth to Each Other's Babies, Accuse Fertility Clinic of IVF Mixup

LOS ANGELES, California — Two couples gave birth to each other’s biological babies after a Los Angeles clinic, the California Center for Reproductive Health, allegedly implanted the wrong embryos in the respective mothers.

Both babies are healthy, but the parents were allegedly traumatized: not only did they miss the early development of their own respective children, but they had to part from babies with which they had already bonded for the first few months.

One couple began to feel doubts, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday, when their baby girl “didn’t resemble either of her parents and looked to be of a different race.”

The Times continued:

That moment began a troubling, months-long ordeal in which the Cardinales ultimately learned their embryo had been switched with that of another couple during in vitro fertilization. The couples had given birth to — and were unknowingly raising — each other’s babies.

“The heartbreak and confusion cannot be understated,” a teary Daphna Cardinale said during a news conference Monday …

It wasn’t until December 2019 that the two couples finally met. It was the first time either had seen their biological babies.

Over the next few weeks, they met nearly every day. In January 2020, the babies had their first overnight stays with their new families before both couples decided they would stay in their new homes — with their biological parents — for good.

Accidental switches after birth are rare, but even such incidents are more common than switches before birth.

Earlier this year, a Tennessee couple was given the wrong baby at a hospital; they were lucky to notice before they left.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.