Eight days after her son was born and was still being cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit, Vera Delgado went home briefly to take a shower and change her clothes.
When she came back to South Miami Hospital, she found her baby, Mario Viera, had been circumcised - by mistake.
Now, Delgado is suing the hospital, not for a medical mistake, but for assault and battery on her newborn. She is asking for $1 million for the "deformity" the circumcision caused.
"This is not medical malpractice," said her lawyer, Spencer Aronfeld. "We are suing for battery, an unauthorized assault on this baby. They took a knife to him without his parent's permission."
"The baby was in neonatal intensive care with complications from a birth-related infection," said her lawyer. "They took the baby out and amputated healthy tissue from the penis in an irreversible procedure."