Overview
- In June 2009 a hospital administrative worker, Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, left the Hospital General de México with a newborn after months of faking a pregnancy and the baby was recovered alive hours later.
- Investigators used security camera footage and telephone records to trace Marín’s movements and locate her and her husband at a nearby hotel, evidence that formed the basis of the prosecution.
- Marín was convicted and served more than 13 years in prison before her 2023 release, while her husband spent about two and a half years in pretrial detention and was later acquitted.
- Maite Alberdi’s documentary Un hijo propio premiered on Netflix on Thursday, August 13, 2026 and juxtaposes interviews and dramatizations to contrast Marín’s claim of a prior agreement with the baby’s mother and the judge’s finding that evidence did not support that consent.
- By foregrounding Marín’s history of pregnancy losses and the social and family pressures to become a mother, the film has renewed public debate over motive, memory and hospital practices and could prompt closer scrutiny of how such cases are investigated and reported.