Baby Mix-Up Fear Prompts ID Tests : Medicine: Western Medical Center-Santa Ana hopes examinations of the parents and infants should resolve whether a mistake-- very rare in pediatrics--took place.

Fearful that two newborn babies might have been given to the wrong parents, Western Medical Center-Santa Ana is conducting a battery of medical tests on two families to determine the identities of the infants.

“This is the kind of thing you never want to have happen,” hospital spokesman John Boop said Wednesday. “We are taking all the appropriate steps to identify positively the babies. We want to make absolutely dead certain that this does not happen again.”

Boop said that hospital officials are not sure a mix-up actually occurred and that tests of the parents and infants should resolve the question. Testing should be completed today, Boop said.

Hospital officials refused to discuss how the confusion arose or what caused anyone to suspect a mix-up.

“This is an unusual situation,” Boop said. “If someone has that kind of concern, we don’t want them to have it. Their concerns could be legitimate, but they also might not be.”

Boop said the families have requested anonymity: “These are very sensitive people and this is a very sensitive issue.”

The spokesman said the common hospital procedure calls for infants to receive bracelets with identification numbers immediately after birth.

Officials at other county hospitals said similar security measures are taken to ensure that infants end up with the right parents.

“Any time you hand the baby to the mother for feeding or discharge, the wristbands are checked,” Fountain Valley Regional Hospital’s nursing director Barbara Patton said. “Even when they (nurses) are understaffed, that’s not a procedure they violate very quickly.”

A California Department of Health Services hospital licensing official said the hospital would be expected to file an “unusual occurrence” report with the state.

“I have been the (district) manager for seven years, and I don’t think I have had an occasion where this has happened, so it’s rare,” said Jacqueline Lincer of the state agency’s Santa Ana office.