Parents who feared their baby was swapped at birth and sold to traffickers reunited with son

The British man and his wife who claimed their baby was swapped at birth and sold to traffickers were last night reunited with their lost son. Investigators tracked down the child by ordering other new mothers to have their babies DNA tested.

The couple accused Dr Alejandro Guidos, a gynaecologist at the prestigious Centro Ginecologico hospital, of masterminding a plot with other hospital staff to switch their light-skinned baby and sell him to human traffickers.

But yesterday afternoon, hours after the family attended court to hear Dr Guidos formally accused, the country's Attorney General's Office dramatically announced that investigators had already identified their biological baby.

The parents of four other boys who were also born on the same day, May 21, had last week brought their babies to be DNA tested last week after an order was issued by the country's Prosecutor General's Office, which had taken over the investigation.

The baby whose tests were last to be processed proved to be the couple's real child.
Speaking last night, Prosecutor General Luis Martinez said that the babies of two couples had been mixed up and that each would be returned to their rightful parents at a special court hearing with the presence of a judge.

He added: "We understand the painful drama of these two families. We are talking about two children who were swapped."

The family's lawyer, Fernando Meneses, said that the case "apparently" seemed to be an accidental mix-up of the infants and urged the hospital to review procedures to ensure it could not happen again.