SWITCHED AT BIRTH: Swapped child returned to his mother after 3 months apart

Mother knew the child the hospital gave her was not her own

In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail, Richard Cushworth and his wife Mercedes "Mercy" Casanellas shared their experience when an El Salvador hospital swapped their son with another baby following his birth.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - Casanellas said she believed her obstetrician, Dr. Alejandro Guidos, planned to swap her child from the beginning. 
Her son was due to be born June 20th, but five days before the due date Guidos told her she needed an emergency Cesarean.
Casanellas was worried because her husband was out of the country but went through with the c-section. Thinking back, she recalls Dr. Guidos was "the only person who knew that my husband was British and that he would be out of the country for one month."
She gave birth to Jacob via Cesarean on May 21st at 35-weeks pregnant. Casanellas said, "I saw my son at 9:30 p.m. when he was born, and then they put me to sleep. In the morning, around 8 a.m., they brought in everyone's baby, but they never brought mine.
I told them, 'Where is my baby? Where is my son?' but they just told me: 'He is coming, he is coming.'"

Her son was not brought to her side until the middle of the day and she immediately noticed his skin was darker and his nose and eyebrows were not the same as the child she delivered. When she mentioned the differences, she was told "he was a newborn and that he was swollen and that he would change"
The doctors "said his skin would get lighter and that the swelling would go down. They said everything was ok, so I believed them. But then my family started to make comments ... 'he doesn't look like your husband and he doesn't look like you.'"
Comments on the child's appearance continued for two months as Casanellas loved and cared for the boy she believed was her son. 
After recovering from the Cesarean, Mercy and her husband prepared to return to Dallas, Texas where she was ready to begin studies for her Masters degree, and she recalled, "I didn't want to think about the idea of a switch because I am very connected to my baby and I breastfed him every day - I still do. I thought, 'how could I even think that this is not my child?', but the thoughts were always on my mind, and finally I made the decision to do a DNA test because I didn't want to have these thoughts hanging over me as I went to study for my Masters." 
When the DNA results showed a zero percent chance of Jacob being their son, the alarmed parents took to a local TV station to plead for their real son's safe return.
The couple went on air to say "We haven't been able to sleep thinking about where he is and who has him ... We just want them to give us our son back ... It's a horrible situation. I have a child and I don't know where he is."
Initially the couple was afraid their son had been sold to human traffickers after being born in El Salvador. They believed that the mix-up was because their light-skinned child could potentially be more appealing to traffickers.
Evidence of the purposeful swap of their son was brought to light when a family friend, who was present at the birth, showed a picture of the couple's son just after birth. In the photo he had a yellow clip around the umbilical cord which can only be removed when the cord naturally falls off. The baby Mercy received had a white clip around his umbilical cord.
Mercy also said, "We had the footprints taken of my child when he was born for his birth certificate. Later when I went back to change a mistake on the document I noticed that the prints on his certificate were different to the ones we had - they were smaller and a different pattern."
In the delivery room her son was only six pounds since he was premature but ten days later the baby was seven pounds. She found this unusual since newborns usually lost weight in the first days following their birth.
The indictment the couple submitted also included dark testicles, a mole and dark hair on the infant, all of which were different from the child Casanellas remembered seeing after giving birth.
When confronted with the evidence, San Salvador's Ginecologio hospital denied the swap since their "high standards" of control would not have allowed it.
El Salvador authorities were contacted after the couple discovered the truth from the DNA test and the Attorney General's Office ordered the hospital's CCTV equipment, administration and medical registers and all information about the mothers and babies Dr. Guidos attended to be confiscated.
Investigators were able to find Casanellas' biological child when they ordered other new mothers to provide DNA tests for their babies. 
While they were waiting for the DNA results, Mercy and Richard decided to keep Jacob if his parents could not be found. Mercy said, "I could not help but think about him too."
Luckily for Jacob, his real parents were discovered and the children were returned to their rightful homes. Upon the return of their son, Mercy and Richard decided to name him Moses.
"They have named him Moses because he was lost for three months and now he's been found. Moses was hidden away for three months before he was found by the Prince of Egypt. It's very moving," said Richard's mother, Lynne Cushworth during the interview. 
Privacy rights have been implemented for both baby "Jacob" and Moses while Dr. Guidos is under investigation.

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