Women changed at birth in 1965 say mistake was covered up for decades: ‘They kept it a secret’ Blogging Sole

In 1965, a Norwegian woman gave birth to a baby girl in a private hospital. Seven days later, she returned home with a baby.

When the baby developed dark curls that made her look different from herself, Karen Rafteseth Dokken assumed she simply took after her husband’s mother.

It took almost six decades to discover the real reason: Rafteseth Dokken’s biological daughter had been deceived changed at birth in the maternity ward of the Central Norway Hospital.

The daughter she ended up raising, Mona, was not the baby she gave birth to.

The babies – one born on February 14 and the other on February 15, 1965 – are now 59-year-old women who, along with Rafteseth Dokken, are suing the state and municipality.

In their case, opened Monday in Oslo District Court, they claim their human rights were violated when authorities discovered the mistake when the girls were teenagers and covered it up. They say Norwegian authorities violated their right to family life, a principle enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, and are demanding an apology and compensation.

Rafteseth Dokken, now 78, was in tears as she described learning so many years later that she had the wrong baby, according to Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

“I never thought Mona was not my daughter,” she told the court Tuesday. “Her name is Mona after my mother.”

Mona described a feeling of never belonging as she grew up. This feeling of uncertainty pushed her in 2021 to take a DNA test, which showed that she was not the biological daughter of those who had raised her.

But the woman who raised the other baby knew this for a long time.

A routine blood test in 1981 revealed that the daughter she was raising, Linda Karin Risvik Gotaas, was not biologically related to her. However, the woman who was raising him did not pursue her maternity case. Norwegian health authorities were informed of the mix-up in 1985, but failed to inform others involved.

Both women who were switched at birth said in interviews that it was a shock to learn of this confusion, but that this knowledge helped put pieces of their lives into place, explaining the differences both in terms of appearance and behavior.

Kristine Aarre Haanes, representing Mona, said the state “violated her right to her own identity all these years. They kept it a secret. »

Mona could have learned the truth when she was a young adult, but “she didn’t discover the truth until she was 57.”

“His biological father died. She has no contact with her biological mother,” added Aarre Haanes.

The circumstances surrounding the 1965 exchange at Eggesboenes Hospital are unclear, but NRK media reports suggest that there were several cases during the 1950s and 1960s where children were accidentally exchanged in the same establishment. Back then, babies were kept together while their mothers rested in separate rooms.

In other cases, the errors were spotted before the children were permanently placed with the wrong families, according to reports.

An official from Norway’s Ministry of Health and Care Services said the state was not aware of similar cases and there were no plans to open a public investigation.

Asgeir Nygaard, representing the Norwegian state, argues this case on the grounds that the 1965 change took place in a private facility and that the health directorate in the 1980s did not have the legal authority to inform other families when They discovered the error.

“Documents from the time indicate that government officials found the assessments difficult, in part because it was not legally clear what they could do,” he wrote in a statement to the ‘Associated Press before the start of the trial. “That is why we will argue in court that there is no basis for compensation and that the claims presented are in any case time-barred. »

The trial is expected to run through Thursday, but it was unclear when a decision would be expected.

A similar situation would have happened in the United States in 1969, when two little girls were accidentally switched in a Texas hospital, and the mistake was not noticed until a DNA test was carried out in 2018. The women then filed a complaint against the company that later purchased the hospital.

According to the DNA diagnostic centerIn the United States, up to 500,000 babies are at “potential risk of coming home with the wrong parent” each year, but newborns inadvertently switched at birth are usually noticed almost immediately after the incident. The center says only eight incidents of babies being switched at birth were physically documented in the United States between 1995 and 2008, although the center says the number is likely higher.