Pregnant Italian woman to keep twins after IVF ‘mix-up’

Italian government inspectors were due on Monday to visit the Pertini hospital in Rome, where the treatment occurred, after the woman underwent a pre-natal check which revealed her unborn children possessed different DNA to her and her husband.

The woman, who has not been named, underwent IVF treatment on Dec. 4, at the same time as three other women, one of whom had a similar surname to hers, Italian press reported on Monday. Corriere della Sera said their surnames were identical except for three letters.

Michele Ambrosini, a lawyer representing the woman, said she was determined to push on with her pregnancy. "If she had wanted an abortion she would have already done it," he said.

There has been no word from the real mother of the twins, whose own IVF pregnancy reportedly ended with a miscarriage. But Italian legal experts said that she would have no chance of claiming custody, since under Italian law, whoever gives birth to children is the legal mother.

"Legal claims will be useless to get the twins back," Lorenzo D'Avack, vice president of Italy's national bioethics committee said.

The case is another blow to the reputation of Italy's medical profession, following the sentence of life imprisonment handed last week to Milan surgeon Paolo Brega Massone, accused of carrying out unnecessary operations - which killed four people - in order to increase his earnings from the national health service.

A new probe published on Monday revealed that the practice of doctors falsifying records to inflate claims, including one case where plastic surgeries were listed as cancerous tumour operations, cost Italy 1 billion (827m) last year.

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Pregnant Italian woman to keep twins after IVF 'mix-up'