Couple sues IVF clinic over baby mix-up

A woman and her husband are suing a fertility clinic in the US they say implanted a stranger’s embryo, lawyers have said.

The case resembles one before the Irish Courts in 2016 when a couple returned from abroad where they had picked up a child born through an IVF and surrogacy arrangement only to discover that the father didn’t have a genetic connection to the child, when he attempted to assert his paternity.

In the US case, when Daphna and Alexander Cardinale first saw their newborn daughter, conceived through IVF, they noticed the baby girl had jet-black hair and a much darker complexion than anyone in their family.

A DNA test several months later revealed the girl born in September 2019 was not related to either of them, and they had been raising another couple’s child.

Lawyers in Los Angeles say two laboratories connected by one doctor switched the embryos of two entirely separate couples and implanted them in the wrong mothers.

The couples eventually met and worked through the courts to gain custody of their genetic children.

Alexander Cardinale called the mix-up “heartbreaking”.

“Losing the birth child you know, for the genetic child that you don’t know yet… a truly impossible nightmare.”