Mother seeks paternity test after baby switched at postpartum care center in Cheongju
Published: 19 Nov. 2025, 16:04
![A nurse attends to a newborn infant at a hospital in Seoul on Feb. 28, 2024. [YONHAP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/11/19/9f4f7e10-e566-4d81-8237-86114e39c2fe.jpg)
A nurse attends to a newborn infant at a hospital in Seoul on Feb. 28, 2024. [YONHAP]
A newborn was briefly switched with another at a postpartum care center in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, leading the mother to seek a paternity test after discovering the swap herself.
According to a Yonhap News report on Wednesday, the mother was staying at the facility — referred to as joriwon in Korean — when the mix-up occurred on the morning of Aug. 31. Around 11 a.m., she checked the facility's closed-circuit camera system to watch her baby in the nursery. What she saw alarmed her, finding the baby in the video looked nothing like her own.
Disturbed by the discrepancy, the mother went to the nursery and asked the staff to verify the baby’s identity. Shortly afterward, a staff member informed her that her child had been accidentally switched with another baby.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the mother later said. “The baby I saw on the monitor looked nothing like my daughter from the night before. My heart still races when I think about it.”
The postpartum care center had mistakenly brought her baby to another mother’s room, where the infant was breastfed. The other mother reportedly noticed the baby looked different from her own, but did not imagine that the babies could have been switched.
Before checking out of the facility, the mother received a written agreement from the center stating that it would take full responsibility should any health issues arise from the breastfeeding.
Still unable to trust the facility’s newborn management system, she proceeded to have a paternity test done after being discharged.
The care center later admitted that the mistake occurred between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. that day while staff were changing the babies’ diapers and performing sanitation tasks. The babies' name tags had fallen off, and in the process of reattaching them, the newborns were switched.
“It’s true the babies were briefly switched due to staff error,” a center representative told Yonhap News. “However, all newborns wear ankle bracelets with their personal information, so there’s no chance of a permanent switch,” the representative added.
The center said it has since implemented measures to prevent such incidents, refunded the mother the full cost of her stay and covered the expense of the paternity test.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JANG GU-SEUL [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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