New Jersey mom breastfed wrong newborn in hospital mix-up, lawsuit claims



MONTVALE, N.J. - A New Jersey mother claims she unsuspectingly breastfed someone else's newborn in a hospital mix-up, according to a lawsuit.

In September, Melissa Richman underwent a three-hour cesarean section at Valley Hospital while delivering her daughter, Scarlett.

The nurse then gave Richman a little baby to breastfeed.  About 20 minutes later, Richman told WCBS, the nurse came back into the room and demanded the baby.

"She said, 'There has been a terrible mistake. This isn't your baby,'" Richman said.

A few minutes later, Richman says the nurse brought Scarlett in.

"They immediately put her right on me, and they didn't clean me off so I started worrying about the saliva and stuff from the other baby," she said.

Richman had to undergo a series of tests to make sure that she didn't pass along any infections to the other child.

Now, she and her family are suing the hospital.

"Who is the other baby? Is the other baby healthy? Who are those other parents?" Rosemarie Arnold, the attorney representing Richman and her husband, said to WNBC. "Maybe they're out there and maybe they're watching this and they're going to say to themselves, 'Oh, my God, that is us!'"

The hospital declined to comment on the lawsuit.