Swapped at birth: A Romani mother at the heart of a national scandal
Swapped at birth: A Romani mother at the heart of a national scandal
and a quick look into how racist propaganda works
In early December 2022, our daughter had just turned two months old. She was becoming more alert and playful. Every time she saw our faces, she melted into a huge, happy smile.
It was surreal for us, having a newborn, to watch the scandal that hit national news in December 2022.
The swapped babies
A woman, who we know little about except that she’s white and middle-class, gave birth with a C-section on September 13th, 2022 in one of Bulgaria’s most popular maternity hospitals Sheynovo. Several days later, she returned home with a daughter.
As the weeks flew by, she noticed that her baby didn’t look like her older child or anyone else in the family - she had darker skin. And then one day, as she was sorting through hospital documents, she checked the two bracelets.
Immediately after birth, two conjoined plastic bracelets with identical numbers are broken apart by medical staff, and put on the wrists of the mother and the baby. This is to ensure no accidental mixups. Except, in this case, they didn’t ensure much. The two bracelets the mother found in her hospital documents had two different numbers.
She called the hospital. Fast forward to December 16th, DNA test results confirmed that the baby wasn’t hers. The police got involved and the story made its way to national news.
“How is this possible?” was the question that everyone was asking. “What kind of mother wouldn’t recognize her own child?” was also, sadly, among the top questions, defiantly disregarding the fact that the mother only had a glimpse of her baby for a few seconds while still under sedation after a C-section.
The mother made it very clear from the beginning that she wanted to remain anonymous. She never showed her face and only gave cryptic interviews over the phone.
But as the story unraveled, details about the other mother surfaced almost immediately.
She was Romani.
And this shifted the entire narrative.
The white baby in the ghetto
As soon as the name of the second mother, Sevda Mihailova, emerged, reporters were at her doorstep.
Her face was all over national television. Her front door and location were broadcast. And her dark skin, the Romanes rhythm in her dialect, and clear signs of life in poverty sealed the story.
Sevda didn’t run from the reporters. She talked to them while dealing with the biggest shock and heartbreak of her life. She had just learned that the daughter she had been bonding with and raising as her own for several months was someone else’s.
“I don’t want to give her away” was the main thing that people took from her words and assumed she had “stolen the white, more beautiful baby.”
What did Sevda also say? “I don’t want to believe this,” “This can’t be real,” “I haven’t been able to eat or sleep since I found out.”
How did she find out, by the way? A doctor from the hospital showed up at her door and said, “Don’t worry. I want you to be calm. I’ll tell you what’s happening, but first, I want to show you pictures of the other baby.”
“What other baby?” Sevda asked.
The hospital approach was clandestine and clearly with the naive hope that everything could be handled off the record.
How would you react if someone told you your two-month-old is not yours and you need to give it away and swap it for another baby that is, actually, yours?
Most onlookers were asking what the big deal was, two months is nothing, the babies won’t remember it anyway. One of many signs of the low emotional intelligence of the average Bulgarian.
At two months old, you are already bonded. The baby already recognizes you. She knows your voice, your face, your silhouette, and you are her entire world. And she yours.
For us, holding our two-month-old while watching the news, was easy to imagine how the first reaction to such news would be denial.
The problem for Sevda, apart from the swapped babies, was that she shared her thoughts and feelings on national television. She didn’t hide. She didn’t insist on privacy or anonymity.
Naturally, she received zero compassion or understanding. Exactly the opposite. People now thought it was her who swapped the babies.
Because “Gypsies steal white babies,” as the old stereotype tells us. And “sell them abroad,” of course.
Your head would spin if you dive into the comments section of these news reports. Not only were people convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Romani woman would steal a white baby, but a lot of them thought it was all a big conspiracy. A Romani criminal ring that steals white babies and sells them “in Greece” or who knows where.
These fears, stereotypes, and unsubstantiated thoughts already exist. They are so deeply rooted in the psyche of the average Bulgarian that they are like water to fish. As this story was unfolding, and the hospital and police were figuring out how to handle it, Martina went on a walk in the park with a friend-acquaintance who she has known for 20 years and who is among the more open-minded in her circle. “She stole the white baby,” the friend said, giggling in an “of course she did” way while pushing Martina’s stroller along a path in the park. It was an instinct, a thought you don’t second-guess.
And the media reveled in fanning these flames.
“One of the swapped babies from Sheynovo goes missing,” says the headline of this article. If you read further down, you’ll learn that a neighbor reports that the baby “vanished,” and Sevda hasn’t been seen going to the store like she did before. The implication for the mind ready-to-jump-to-conclusions without second-guessing its own thought process is that Sevda ran away with the white baby.
The article concludes, “The media went to Sevda’s house to see what is happening with the swapped babies. The atmosphere there is grim, and the house is half-destroyed.”
The reality? Sevda never left. She lives in poverty and her house was “half-destroyed” (by middle-class standards) even before she gave birth. Whether there was a real neighbor reporting a real fact that Sevda and the baby are not going out, we can’t know, but if the entire country is blaming you for a kidnapping while you’re dealing with a trauma of your own, maybe you won’t leave the house much either.
The hospital, the police, some lawyers, and other figures of authority arranged for a mutually agreed “return” of the babies to their biological families. It happened in January. Both mothers said the moment was bitter-sweet.
The news coverage on Sevda continued.
“Sevda from the Sheynovo case hid the real baby,” says the headline of this tabloid.
Who’s the real baby you might ask, or the “fake” baby for that matter? Reading the actual article, we learn that Sevda had, months ago, posted a lot of pictures of the “white baby” on Social Media, which are now gone. “Most likely the biological parents wanted them removed,” says the article. But Sevda hasn’t yet posted pictures of her biological baby. Hence, she’s hiding it.
What a non-story, right? Not if you’re already believing that Sevda stole the white baby.
Just like the question about the DNA test. A big part of the narrative was that Sevda refused to do a DNA test, a clear sign that she wanted to keep a kidnapped baby. In reality, this national news report from December 21st says that “she and her family went to get the DNA results.” Which means that she had a DNA test done before the story even hit national news.
But again, what does it matter? For the average Bulgarian, even the open-minded one, Sevda stole the baby.
Two mothers from two cultures
Outsiders looking at this story with no compassion but an abundance of cynicism and hunger for drama and punishment, are a great case study in psychology but they are not the real story here.
The two mothers are.
Was it pure racism that brought all this vitriol onto Sevda? Or could she have handled things differently? Could she have said anything or done anything that would convince people she didn’t kidnap the baby?
The ‘white’ mother remained completely outside the focus. Nobody knows her name, her face, or her location. But her privacy extends far beyond the public realm. In one of her few interviews, she said that not even her own friends or parents knew about the swap. Her absolute insistence on anonymity, she explained, was not only to protect her own mental health but that of her close ones.
She didn’t want this case to be linked to her name.
Can anyone blame her? Her reaction, amid the shock and heartbreak, was one of self-preservation. Most women in her place would most likely do the exact same thing.
Sevda, however, exists in another bubble.
“For most people, who were raised in this superficial and alienating culture we’ve built in the “civilized world,” the thought of other people finding out about the pain and problems you’re having with your spouse, sibling, or parent, triggers great shame and resistance. People actively hide and cover up problems. “They play pretend,” Pepi says.
For the Romani, this exact thought brings relief. They rush to share.
There is deep wisdom in Roma culture about what it means to be a human being and it extends beyond ego, power, and self-image. And the first step in expressing this wisdom is both simple and, for mainstream culture, seemingly impossible.
Namely, talk about what is true without shame.”
From “The Romani don’t do shame”
When Sevda was approached by reporters, even before she had sorted through her own feelings, she talked. She was authentic and unfiltered, as the Romani always are. She shared the primal “I don’t want to give her away.” We know, in our heart of hearts, that the other mother also didn’t want to give away the baby she had taken care of for months. But she didn’t share this thought on national television. We just don’t do that, in mainstream culture.
“When the Romani share something on Social Media, they don’t share it with a cold audience. And they show how Social Media is merely a tool. All the criticism that we, as a society, have towards Social Media is truly criticism about how we choose to use it and what it shows us about ourselves.
Like for example, we prefer simulated beauty to imperfect reality. We like to fool ourselves. And what we love, above all else, is to judge each other.
But this is not how the Romani do it.”
From “Connection over perfection: The raw reality of Romani Social Media”
It is unthinkable for a Romani to hide what is true. It is unthinkable that their own parents wouldn’t know that their baby has been swapped. It is unthinkable that they would keep this to themselves. Because it will poison the soul.
Sevda’s approach was a very Romani approach. She was authentic. She stood up with her name and faced the cameras.
And she paid a big price. “Stop writing about me,” she told one reporter hounding her at her home, “stop making things up.”
The other mother stayed away from all this. She knew the climate. She knows people are cold, judgemental, and vicious. Even with the scarce information about her - that she gave birth with a C-section, outsiders still found the energy to blame her that she did not recognize her child.
In the Roma world, people are not cold and vicious. In the Roma world, you have a big family behind your back and, when you are struggling with something, they support and embrace you. They don’t judge or blame you.
Unfortunately for Sevda, she stepped outside of the Roma world when she spoke with the reporters. And if any stereotype was truly cemented in this case, it was most likely the one that the Romani have about Bulgarians: cold people you’re better off staying away from. “Because they don’t understand.”
The conclusion of the Sheynovo case
After a lot of investigating and very little disciplinary action, it was concluded that the hospital was at fault.
The babies were swapped in the very first hours of their lives, one being accidentally put in the other’s empty crib. The two mothers only saw their biological daughters once, immediately after giving birth. The next meeting was the following day. At that point, they had each been given the other’s baby.
There was no conspiracy. There was no kidnapping.
Both families sued the hospital, for the same amount: 300, 000 BGN (just over 170, 000 USD.)
The lawsuit of the white family went first. In March 2024, they were awarded 100, 000 BGN.
Sevda’s case concluded in August 2024. The amount she was awarded was 70, 000 BGN.
We can’t read a justification in the court documents, so let’s leave it up to the imagination why the mother living in poverty was awarded 30,000 BGN less even though both mothers suffered the exact same injustice.
The anonymous mother gave a short interview almost a year after the story broke out, in an attempt to put an end to all the mindless conspiracies.
“My desire to remain anonymous comes from the fact that my personal space was invaded. I was disturbed by reporters, who came and knocked at my door asking for an interview. I was being sent messages that my baby was sick and an ambulance was called for her.”
The unspeakable weight of her grief is palpable even through the shroud of privacy and anonymity. “I have three children,” she says, “even if one is not living with me.”
The families stay in touch and exchange pictures of the girls growing up, she says, even though this brings a lot of pain.
Sevda hasn’t given any interviews. Her brush with the “superior, civilized society” probably taught her the same thing that her anonymous sister-in-fate already knew. Better to keep your distance.