The two girls, Lorena and Antonella, were taken to the nursery and labelled with bracelets consecutively numbered 47 and 48, before being given to their mothers, who smiled as they looked at their baby daughters for the first time.
But unknown to the two women, who had been knocked out with anaesthetic for the birth, the babies they were given were not their own... and everyone's lives were set on dramatically different paths.
Lorena had been given to Caterina and Michele Cobuzzi. Antonella had been handed to Loreta and Luigi Mazzone.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, one of those babies, Lorena told how, 24 years on, she was given the deeply distressing news by the Cobuzzis - the two people she thought were her parents - that she was not their real daughter.
‘I felt physically sick’, said Lorena, now 26, remembering the moment she was told the truth two years ago at the family home.
‘They sat me down and told me they had something important to tell me. They said there had been two families at the hospital that day. They said the babies had been swapped.’
‘The feeling was terrible - I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know who to call mum and dad.’
What Lorena has never got to the bottom of is how the Cobuzzis discovered she was not their real daughter.
They told her they had seen a photo of the other girl Antonella and were struck by how much she looked like Caterina.
In the same photograph the couple noted that Antonella was next to another girl, Elisa, who Antonella thought was her sister - but looked like Lorena.
The photo is said to have been from Facebook, although the Cobuzzis told Lorena they had contacted her biological mother Loreta and asked for a family photo.
The feeling was terrible. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know who to call mum and dad
‘Antonella, who has naturally curly hair, looked exactly like my official mother, Caterina. While Elisa looked exactly like me. It was like seeing myself in a photo,’ Lorena said.
It is thought that the Cobuzzis may have had their suspicions that Lorena was not their daughter and had decided to investigate.
But the couple have never told her how they came to wonder that she might not be their daughter.
Once they had seen the photo and established the girls shared a birthday at the same Canosa Hospital, they got a DNA test which proved Antonella was their biological daughter.
As a result of the maternity ward mix up, both girls and their families are suing the Italian health authorities for a combined €22 million.
Lorena’s lawyer, Stefano di Feo told MailOnline: ‘It’s the first case of this kind. Of course babies have been swapped accidentally at hospitals before. But this is the first time anyone has found out after 24 years.’
The two sets of parents initially went home with their newborns just a few miles apart the same small town of Trinitapoli in Puglia near Bari, with a population of just 15,000 on the Adriatic coast.
Source - Mailonline
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