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A Charlotte woman suspicious of what happened to her premature baby is reviving legal action against Novant Health, she said in a press conference Thursday.
In a lawsuit re-filed this week, she accuses the health system of negligence and emotional distress following a February 2022 ordeal that she said left her devastated and confused. Her story was first reported by the Charlotte Observer in 2024.
After giving birth to a premature daughter, Legacy, at Novant, LaChunda Hunter was told her baby had died in the hospital’s intensive care unit for infants. But three days later, a neonatal specialist told her the baby’s condition was improving, her lawsuit states.
Yet another doctor called again the same day, this time to say that the hospital had made a mistake and the encouraging test results she’d been provided were for a different baby, the suit says. She was told that her little girl, Legacy, had died.
Novant officials wouldn’t meet with Hunter to explain what happened, she said, and the doctor who told her that the call saying Legacy was alive had been a mistake threatened to have Hunter arrested if she came to the hospital.
Discrepancies in the child’s medical chart, including updates days after the death that the infant was having tubes removed, have also left Hunter wondering what really happened to Legacy.
Since then, Hunter has questioned whether the baby she buried was really hers. An initial DNA test was inconclusive, but a second set of results — requested by Novant, she said — showed the baby was hers. Hunter, though, says she doesn’t believe that a second sample was actually taken for testing, since she never signed for it.
A photo of the infant in a coffin displayed during Thursday’s press conference in front of Novant’s Presbyterian Medical Center shows the baby looks unlike Legacy, Hunter said, particularly since she thinks the baby’s body appears to have male genitalia.
Novant Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Mistreatment claims
Hunter initially filed suit against Novant and the doctors involved in March 2024, but the case was voluntarily dismissed last January, with the option to refile within a year.
John C. Barnett, a civil rights activist who stood with Hunter Thursday, said her experience with Novant is one of many alleging mistreatment that he’s heard from Black women.
Alicia Pringle, of Wilmington, said she can relate to Hunter’s pain. Her daughter, Jocelyn, was born at Novant in October 2017 with a C-section delivery, she said Thursday. She was told her daughter passed while she was holding her, but she only saw her once, Pringle said. With no death certificate having been filed, she said, she’s doubted what happened to her daughter.
Hunter, who stood with tears in her eyes in front of the Charlotte hospital Thursday afternoon, said she just wants clarity from Novant.
“I just want my daughter. I want answers. I want to know what happened,” Hunter said.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 5:58 PM.
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Amber Gaudet
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