DNA to the rescue

What do you do when your mates keep having a go at you because you and your partner have dark hair and brown eyes, but your new baby has blonde hair and blue eyes? Well, you could go off and have a paternity test in secret - and then when you find out you are not the child's father, confront your partner about who the father really is. Then, if she's on the ball, she'll also have a DNA test - and be more than a little surprised when you find the baby isn't yours either. How so? An unintended switch at the local hospital 10 months previously with girls born 18 minutes apart. At the time, both mothers had commented that their baby's weights had changed "overnight" but they were assured by hospital staff that the weights had been "recorded incorrectly". Both sets of Czech couples have decided they will switch children - so they can have their "own" daughter. Before then though, they plan to spend more time together, before exchanging children in the lead-up to Christmas. But it does make one wonder what their lives would have been like if the girls had been raised in the wrong families. And how strong are "blood ties" - given the couples had raised the girls for 10 months and were still prepared to hand them over.