Newspapers, television and radio around the world have been carrying reports recently about two mothers in the Czech Republic who took home the wrong newborn baby girls after a hospital mix-up.
The mistake was only revealed when one father became suspicious because his ‘daughter’ did not look like him or his wife – genetic testing and detective work confirmed his suspicions. The two girls, now ten months old, are being returned to their biological families.
Such incidents are thankfully rare, but when they do occur it is hugely traumatic for the families involved. Developmental psychologists such as myself are often asked the question, ‘will this have a lasting effect on the children’s development? There is no simple answer.
Although young babies have a preference for their mother, they do not seem to be especially upset by separation from her. Research conducted some time ago found that below four months of age, babies who are being adopted are very unlikely to show prolonged distress at the separation.
At around eight months, many babies start to show distress at separation from their mother and other people that they know well. This distress indicates that the babies have become what psychologists term ‘attached’ to these people. The attachment provides security for the babies – they are more prepared to explore in the presence of the person, and start to check on this person’s reactions, especially in times of uncertainty.
So the two baby girls are likely to be attached to their non-biological mothers who have cared for them for the last ten months and to other members these families.
Research conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, when separation of young babies was much more common because of hospitalisation of the baby or mother, revealed that the initial crying and intense distress is followed by apathy and listlessness which can last several days.
Following this, there is an apparent recovery, but this seems to involve detachment as returning parents may be rejected and ignored.
However, work by the Robertsons, a husband and wife team, showed how preparation for the separation, talking about the missing mother, having keepsakes, maintaining familiar routines, all resulted in minimal distress when a child was separated from her mother.
These techniques are likely to be tried by the experts who are working with the families, but their task is not an easy one. The child cared for by the Robertsons was older and so could understand explanations – these babies will not have this advantage.
As a result, even with the best planning and organisation, it is likely that both babies will be very distressed by the separation from the carer they have known for ten months and find it difficult to adapt to the unfamiliar biological mother they do not know, and with whom they have no history of social experiences.
My own guess is that the ideal conditions for an exchange would be for both families to live together so that the baby girls could develop a relationship with their biological mother while deriving security from the woman who has been looking after them since their birth. However, the logistics and resources have not allowed this. As a result, the transition is not likely to be an easy one in the short term.
All this focuses on the babies, but what about the families? There may be a worry that because the mothers did not have prolonged and early contact with their biological daughter that they will have failed to ‘bond’ with her.
This notion was common in the 1990s but subsequent research has largely discredited this idea, and so there is no reason why the mothers should not be able to have close and loving relations with their biological daughters.
What of the longer term outlook for these little girls? Probably the most important thing is for the families and babies to develop secure and trusting relationships with one another.
Such relationships appear to provide a basis for later confidence and self-esteem. Despite many research studies no single ingredient has been found that is vital for such relationships, although adult being responsive and having secure relationships of their own appear to be important contributors.
For these families, one of the major difficulties to overcome is the patience needed to build up new relationships.
Despite all these reservations, there are good reasons to be relatively optimistic about the future of the girls. Children can be remarkably resilient in the face of adverse experiences.
Even in circumstances that would be considered very harmful there are some children who seem to be largely unaffected by the experience. Moreover, what seems to be important is having secure and close relations with others in the family. Thus, the better the relationships that can be established between the biological family and their daughter, the better the chances are of later adjustment.
David Messer is a Professor of Education at the Open University’s Centre for Childhood, Development and Learning.
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