ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES – Siti Mauliah remembers vividly how the baby handed to her by a nurse before she left the hospital where she had given birth had a fuller head of hair than the child she had breastfed just a day earlier.
When she reached home, her concerns that something bad had occurred grew when the baby rejected her attempts to breastfeed him. He was also not wearing the clothes she had packed for him.
“I felt no bond with the baby I was carrying… My conscience was rejecting him, telling me this was not my baby. My baby’s hair is thinner and slightly brownish,” Siti told The Straits Times at her home in Mekar Sari village, about an hour’s drive from Jakarta.
More than a year since, it has emerged that Siti’s instincts and concerns were spot-on. The hospital’s negligence had led to her son being swapped with another boy who was born on the same day.
The two Indonesian babies are set to be returned to their biological parents on September 29.
There will be a period of acclimatisation to ease the toddlers from the trauma of being separated from the only parents they have known since they were born on July 18, 2022.
A week after taking the baby home, Siti thought her suspicions had been confirmed when she discovered the identity bracelet on the child bore another woman’s name – Dian Hartono.
Siti, who is married to a factory worker, had not checked the bracelet on the day she left the hospital.
But when she went back to the hospital to inform the nurses about her discovery, they turned her away, insisting that the babies had not been switched, only the bracelets.
Siti’s maternal instincts persisted and she remained uneasy. So she persevered and set out to trace Dian and finally found her address.
By the time she visited Dian at her home to tell her about the identity bracelet bearing her name, four months had passed since the birth of their children.
“I felt as if I had been struck by lightning when I saw Dian who was carrying a baby in her arms and had no idea the baby was my biological son,” Siti said.
When she told Dian their babies may have been accidentally switched in the hospital, using the bracelet bearing her name as evidence, Dian did not believe her.
Dian was convinced the baby she took home was her biological son because the bracelet on him also had her name inscribed on it.
“I was about five metres away from Dian at her home. I knew the baby in her arms was mine. I wanted to hold him, but I had nothing to back me up,” said Siti, adding that Dian did not welcome her.
About a year after the babies were born, a lawyer, Rusdi Ridho, learnt of the case via word of mouth and arranged for DNA tests for Siti and her baby. The results confirmed her suspicions.
Rusdi of Jakarta-based Sima Lawyers Attorney and Counsellor subsequently alerted the police, who ordered cross-DNA tests of both babies and both sets of parents.
The police announced on Monday that the results had confirmed a case of cradle-swapping at Sentosa hospital in Bogor. The babies, the police said, would eventually be returned to their respective biological mothers on September 29, after gradual adjustment processes were completed.
Siti’s case highlights the lack of awareness about the law and poor access to legal assistance among poor villagers in Indonesia.
