A 3D ultrasound imaging service in Canada has been accused of supplying the same images of unborn babies to expectant mothers.
Jennifer Cusimano posted a photo of her unborn baby to her mother’s group on Facebook when her friend noticed it was the same image she had been given.
“We were both shocked and wondered if they made a mistake,” said Jennifer Cusimano.
The expectant mother then rang BabyView 3D Prenatal Imaging in Ontario, Canada and they offered to take a look at the pictures.
“Meanwhile, I made a post online to compare the two photos and ask people for advice and what they thought only to have my post be shared numerous times …I started to receive message upon message of people showing me they had exact same photo,” she said.
“I also had a friend on my Facebook who went to BabyView the day after me and had two different images that I then recognised when another person posted those photos to my inbox and I immediately recognised it, ” she added.
Ms Cusimano says about six different images have been given to more than 40 people.
Jennifer Cusimano and other local mothers who claim they have been involved. Image supplied.
She is pursuing legal action against the organisation along with some of the members of a private Facebook group who say they have been victims of a "scam".
"It isn't about the money we lost, it's so, so much more than that and we want these monsters shut down!!"
The Canadian mother, who is expecting her third child, went to the ultrasound centre in Pickering Ontario when she was 22 weeks pregnant.
"While at the ultrasound that day, the whole scan wasn't very clear, she [the technician] would point out where the eyes and nose etc were but it was very hard to tell. Once done she asked my partner and I to wait in the waiting room where five minutes later she emerged and provided me with two pretty clear face shots."
"I was shocked because I didn't see that but she claimed she'd 'cleaned them up a bit'," said Cusimano.
Jennifer Cusimano compared her image with other images on the company's Facebook page. Image supplied.
"I didn't think too much of it besides it being strange, but trusted her, and never in a million years did the thought cross my mind that it would be a fake picture," she said.
The company have said they had a "technical glitch" and are reviewing their processes.
They posted a statement on Facebook about the issue.
"BabyView would like to update about the current issue related to pictures duplication. We truly understand your concerns however BabyView team always try to exercise all humanly possible measures to meet the highest standards to fulfill customers expectations. Our services are not only limited to providing pictures but also we do provide other valuable services, which include live video of your baby, heart beat and gender determination. Most of these services are performed in front of clients to give them a lifetime experience."
"We regret that one of the services was compromised because of some technical glitch; however, we have already put some new protocols and procedures in place to avoid such incident in the future. We do apologize to our valuable customers for this unfortunate incident."
The company is calling for any other women who have had any issues with their images to come forward.
"BabyView truly regret and apologize on this unfortunate incident and will try to adapt all possible measures to avoid such situation in the future."
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Top Comments
What a sucky thing to do. Often they can't get an image because of the baby's position and when that happens the woman is supposed to be given time to go for a walk or eat to wake baby up and make the image possible. I suspect this technical glitch was the place being over booked so instead of giving her a 30minuate slot to allow time for baby to respond they were given 10 minutes and then when the scan wasn't a good scan they simply hand them a picture from someone else's scan bad practice. I know when I went I was booked for an hour but ended up only needing 5 minutes. I felt cheated when they finished as I aid for an hour I'd have liked to have a little longer but the he was 5/10 minutes to scan 50 to get them into position. Really sounds like this branch wasn't booking long enough slots for them to need to hand out fake pictures.