Protecting newborns,
just in case ...
Hospital’s Infant ID kit gives parents peace of mind
and gives police a head start

By Chris Young
MethuenLife Writer

It is a chilling thought: a child being abducted from a hospital.
Although no baby has ever been kidnapped from a local hospital, Caritas Holy Family Hospital’s Birthing Center is beefing up its already-sophisticated security by adding another measure to protect newborn infants born in its facility.
Starting this month, the Birthing Center is offering mothers who give birth at Holy Family the option for a free Infant Identifier kit, a child-locating method used to track a missing baby. Holy Family is the first hospital in the area to offer this security.
Holy Family Birthing Center nurses have been trained to use the kit, invented by a Massachusetts dentist. For the trained nurse, the process is simple. They collect a sample of a baby's salivary DNA, with its scent, in a simple, three-second swipe. They also collect the mother's thumbprint on the dual end of the identifier swab. The swab is then sealed in a container and given to the mother. It will be fresh for up to three years, at which time the child will be ready for a different kind of identity protection called a Toothprint.
“Mothers take it home with them, so that if anything happens, law enforcement has the swab for the scent dogs to follow,” said Cathie Suchodolski, head of the Birthing Center.
“Nobody ever anticipates this happening, but if bad things happen, it is better to have this DNA and scent that is unique to each child for a trained dog is able to decipher,” she said.
“ If nothing happens, the kit just sits in the back of the closet and is never used. This is a gift we are giving them. Hopefully, they will never have to use it.”
Holy Family is working with Methuen Police Department Canine Unit, headed by Supervisor Sgt. Michael Havey. MPD has three highly trained scent dogs, but none is better than Sugar, the department's 3-year-old bloodhound, Havey said.
Sugar, with her trainer Patrol Officer Rob Prindle, is occasionally called on by other police departments because of her superior tracking skills.
“We get called on most often for Sugar because bloodhounds are better at tracking older scent,” Havey said. “We always use Sugar if a child goes missing. The bloodhound was designed for that.”
Sugar successfully tracked a missing women in Tyngsborough two years ago, Havey said.
The Police Department also owns Dunkin’ (named for his benefactor, Dunkin’ Donuts), a female Dutch shepherd handled by Patrol Officer Jeff Torrisi, and a male German shepherd paired with Patrol Officer Aaron Little. The dogs live with their handlers and are treated as family pets.
The infant identity kit, with a child's unique DNA and scent, is far superior to existing methods of identifying lost children, Havey said.
Fingerprints and video images were state of the art until Dr. David Tesini, a pediatric dentist who practices in Natick, invented Toothprints, which uses a thermoplastic wafer to capture a child's dental impression as well as saliva for possible DNA analysis and scent-dog tracking. Every person has a unique bite, even identical twins.
So far, 2 million children have had Toothprints made, Tesini said.
Many communities have sponsored public Toothprints events, where dentists and dental assistants take impressions of a child's bite and collect saliva, which is put into a plastic bag for parents to keep safe for quick access if needed.
Until now, no one had used the technique for infants.
Tesini worked with the staff of Holy Family Birthing Center to accommodate the infant mouth. He developed the infant identity kit which requires swabbing the infant’s mouth and fingerprinting the mother.
“The Federal Bureau of Missing Children had recommended that we needed a better way to link the child with the parent,” said Suchodolski, of the Birthing Center. “The Toothprint and DNA sample are ways to do that for older children. For infants, the swab of the baby's mouth and the thumbprint of the mother is the link we were looking for.”
Holy Family has a sophisticated infant security system to prevent a stranger from walking out of the ward with someone else's child or a nursery mix-up. Each baby has an electronic tag on his or her umbilical cord and there are a series of door locks and computer checks.
“We always know where a baby is at all times,” Suchodolski said. “We meet all the standards of the Joint Commission,” an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies hospitals.
Although Holy Family is the first hospital in the area to offer this protection, Tasini said he is swamped with requests from other U.S. hospitals as well as many from overseas. He holds the patent for the kit. Dr. John Wagoner, a Seattle dentist, invented the material Tasini uses, called Easy Tray.