January 31, 2013

Breast Milk Mix-up Leads to Lawsuit

A Canadian couple is suing Alberta Health Services, several doctors and a nurse at an Edmonton hospital after their newborn son was allegedly fed breast milk from a mother with hepatitis C, reports CBC news.

The suit claims a blood test confirmed the milk came from a woman who tested positive for hepatitis C and the milk was mistakenly fed to the son of Celeste and Jeffrey Fleming last January while he was in the Royal Alexandra Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

“The Royal Alex did not even see fit to tell them about the mix-up the night it happened; they waited until the next morning,” Carol Robinson, the Flemings’ lawyer, told CBC News.

According to the suit, lab tests a year after the birth confirmed the baby did not have the disease.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states there is no documented evidence that breast-feeding spreads hepatitis C. Hepatitis C is spread through blood-to-blood contact, most often through needles or blood transfusions.

To read the CBC News article, click here.

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