Mother breast-fed wrong baby

The mother was given the wrong baby

A hospital has apologised after a mother was handed the wrong newborn baby for breast-feeding.

Eastbourne District General Hospital in East Sussex, blamed the mix-up on the babies having similar surnames.

Nathalie Brooks was recovering after giving birth to her daughter Meadow when she was given a different baby to nurse.

The incident happened last Tuesday when another newborn baby awoke in the early hours and started to cry.

'Human error'

A midwife asked one of the nursing staff to take the baby to her mother who mistakenly handed it to Ms Brooks who breast-fed her before discovering the error, said hospital spokesman Andy Wood.

Mr Wood said it was the first time an incident of this kind had happened at the hospital which delivers about 1,800 babies a year.

And staff have since met with both Ms Brooks and her partner Neill Carden and the other parents, who are also from Eastbourne, to offer "sincere apologies".

He said: "There is an internal procedure to check both babies' and mothers' name tags at all times and certainly when handing them over for feeding.

"We have looked at the procedures again and are confident they are as they should be but it's obviously human error on this occasion.

"We are in the middle of an internal investigation which will conclude by about Wednesday."