Woman who was swapped at birth for another baby reveals how she found out 43 years later

A woman who was swapped at birth for another baby has revealed on ITV’s This Morning how she found out after 43 years.

The show had her on following their coverage of Playing Nice, the new James Norton ITV drama that follows a similar concept in which babies are swapped at the hospital.

It is every parent’s worst nightmare and, in the case of one woman, it actually happened.

Shirley Munoz Newson lived for 43 years of her life in Wyoming in the United States thinking that she simply didn’t fit in within her family.

Newson appeared on This Morning and spoke about how there was talk of whether she was the child of an affair.

She said all her ‘siblings’ were tall, fair, with light skin, and that she was ‘petite with dark skin, and I just didn't fit in’.

The woman, who is now 66, revealed that she felt she was different as far back as when she was six years old.

Everything turned upside down however when the man who raised her as her father became ill.

She didn't know until she was 43 (ITV)

She said: “The father that raised me was dying and wanted to have a DNA test done. And I was excited. I wanted to have a DNA test done too to prove finally, who I was.”

She stated that this was in the early 2000s and there hadn’t been ready access to DNA testing before then.

Upon finding out her father had a zero percent chance of being her biological dad, her mother took a test.

Newson told This Morning: “[Her mother] looked at me and she said, 'Well, if he's not your father, I'm not your mother, and I will take a DNA test to prove it'.

“My raising father said ‘I knew the minute I looked at you in the cradle, you were not my daughter. You had dark hair and you were dark skinned, and you look like none of the other children well'."

Newson says people were suspicious her mother had had an affair (ITV)

Her mother proceeded to also get a test done, and found out that she too shared no DNA with Newson, which she said was ‘validating’.

“The test helped me understand my feelings," she explained.

The 66-year-old said she became a sort of ‘private detective’ and eventually found her birth mother.

On how it happened however, she still does not know.

Newson stated that one theory presented by the hospital was that the fathers ‘swapped shopping trolleys’ at the store, and she still does not know how it happened.

She went on to say: “I never developed a relationship with my [birth] mum. She just was not there for me, but my aunt, Mary, her sister was, she took me in and became my surrogate mother.”

Heart-warmingly, she went on to add: “I want [anyone in a similar situation] to know that with faith, anything is possible. I survived and escaped two dysfunctional families.

“I have my husband and my children and a large extended family, a biological family and a family of love.”