Today's Edition
Vienna (dpa)
A mix-up between two newborns at a hospital in southern Austria has been solved nearly 35 years later through a DNA test.
The two women, born in October 1990 in Graz, recently met each other and their biological parents after discovering they had been switched at birth, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported on Monday.
Both were premature babies and initially kept in incubators rather than with their mothers, according to the newspaper Kronen Zeitung.
The hospital confirmed the mix-up and its resolution to dpa. "We deeply regret that this mistake occurred at the time," the hospital's managing director said in a statement.
One of the women learnt years ago that she could not be the biological child of the couple who raised her, after a blood donation revealed an incompatible blood type.
Despite hospital investigations and a public appeal in 2016, the other family could not be found.
The second woman discovered the truth only weeks ago, after learning her own blood type during a pregnancy and linking it to the unresolved baby-swap case. She then contacted the other woman and a DNA test confirmed their biological connection, according to ORF.
She said it felt as if she had had a sister for 35 years, describing the experience as eerie but also beautiful. The other woman, who had known about the mix-up for a couple of years, described their reunion as an indescribably good feeling.
