Selma Scarausi looked at her baby daughter and smiled. The baby smiled back. Selma began to cry. “I love my baby very much,” Selma thought. “But is she really my baby?”Selma’s baby was born at a hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil. A few days later Selma and the baby came home from the hospital. Friends and relatives were surprised when they saw the baby. The baby didn’t look like her parents. The baby had dark skin and curly hair, but Selma and her husband had light skin and straight hair. “Babies change,” everyone thought. “She will look like her parents when she is older.”But the baby didn’t change. When she was nine months old, she still looked very different from her parents. Selma and her husband, Paulo, took the baby back to the hospital. “Are you sure this is our baby?” they asked the hospital director. “Of course she is your baby,” the director said. “Immediately after the babies are born, we give them bracelets with numbers. Your baby was given number 51. You left the hospital with baby 51. A mistake is impossible.”“A mistake is possible,” Selma and Paulo thought. “We have another family’s baby. And somewhere another family has our baby. But Sao Paulo is a city of seven million people. How can we find our baby?”Selma and Paulo went to the hospital again. A nurse at the hospital told Paulo, “I remember another couple. Their baby didn’t look like them. The parents had dark skin, but the baby had light skin. The father had very curly hair, but the baby had straight hair.” The nurse gave Paulo the couple’s address. The next day Selma took her baby to the couple’s house. She knocked, and a woman opened the door. There, in the living room, was a nine-month-old baby. Selma knew that the baby was hers. Selma and Paulo’s baby was living with Maria and Luiz Souza. They were black with different culture, traditions and religion. The Souzas also had wondered about their baby because she looked so different from them. When Maria Souza saw the baby, she knew the baby was hers. The hospital made a mistake. Both babies were born at the hospital on the same day. The hospital gave both babies the number 51.During the next weeks the two families prepared to exchange babies. First they exchanged information about the babies’ habits. Then they exchanged toys and clothes. Finally, with smiles and tears, they exchanged babies.