Two women who were switched at birth in hospital have met 35 years later. Jessica Baumgartner and Doris Grünwald were born prematurely at the LKH-Uniklinikum in Graz, Austria, in October 1990, according to local media reports.
Not long after they were born, the two babies were accidentally swapped and given to the wrong parents. In 2012, Ms Grünwald found out she wasn’t the biological daughter of her parents, Evelin and Josef. She made the shock discovery while giving blood, when she realised her blood type didn’t match her mum’s.
The case was reported by Austrian broadcaster ORF in 2016 but the other family couldn’t be traced at that time.
It has since emerged that Ms Baumgartner was raised not far away by Herbert and Monika Derler, according to ORF’s Thema TV programme.
She discovered her blood type didn’t match her parents when she fell pregnant and a doctor told her of the case of the switched babies, the BBC reports.
Contacting Ms Grünwald over Facebook, the pair arranged to meet. Ms Grünwald said: “We got along right away. It was an indescribably good feeling.”
The pair agreed that it felt as if they had known each other for 35 years. The families have met too. Mrs Derler said her first reaction at the news was of “emotional turmoil”.
She said: “But my first thought was Jessica will always be our child. And when I saw Doris, I thought she is such a sweetheart.”
Evelin Grünwald said: “For me, my family has just got bigger and I finally have certainty.” Ms Baumgartner said it was good to see the situation cleared up, but she admitted there were mixed feelings.
She said it was emotionally “huge”, with “beautiful” sides to the story but also “a lot of pain”.
An operations manager at the hospital apologised to both families, telling the broadcaster LKH-Uniklinikum deeply regretted the mistake.