In a sanatorium in San Isidro, a couple had their third baby, which was born without complications. Everything was happiness until the father realized that the baby registered a blood group that did not correspond to his and his wife’s.
They did a new blood test that confirmed the incompatibility and, to corroborate, they requested a DNA test. The result was unequivocal: although they had gestated and accompanied him for 9 months, the baby had been conceived with genetic material from another couple.
The parents had resorted to in vitro fertilization treatment without sperm or egg donation, so they immediately suspected negligence at the fertility institute.
Criminal justice opened an investigation to determine if there was any crime. It was processed in a correctional prosecutor’s office in San Isidro, after the complaint of the couple who had had the baby, for the alleged crimes of identity suppression, fraud and injuries. With intervention of the Argentine Federal Police, The sanatorium where the child was born was raided – to obtain the medical history – and the fertility institute.
The investigation determined that the problem was in the institute, which already informed the couple to whom the embryo originally belonged that it was gestated.
The other embryo – the one that should have been used – was determined not to be suitable for implantation – which, at least, rules out the hypothesis of double confusion And of another wrongly destined baby.
The criminal case was closed and was referred to family jurisdiction, which now must determine how to proceed with an unprecedented case in which, due to the sensitivity of the case and for not yet having a resolution, the identities of all involved and the fertility institute are protected.
Vadim Mischanchuk, a lawyer for the clinic, stated that they could not pinpoint where the error was: “The protocol was reviewed one hundred times and it was not found where this situation could have occurred.”
