Wire report
‘She wasn’t acting, she wanted to live it’: how a fake pregnancy resulted in the wildest true crime film of the year
Netflix documentary A Child of My Own tells the stranger-than-fiction story of a hospital worker who went to extreme lengths in her efforts to become a mother. Its director recounts their meetings in a Mexican prison The CCTV footage of the hospital corridor is grainy but you can make out a young woman carrying an oversized gift bag. Nothing unusual there. Except that inside the bag is a newborn baby girl, just hours old. And the woman carrying the bag, walking out of the hospital’s main entrance, past two security guards who are idly chatting, is not the baby’s mother. Her name is Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, known to everyone as Alejandra. When film-maker Maite Alberdi met her in a low-security Mexican prison, Alejandra was in the final year of a 13-year jail sentence for snatching the baby. Alberdi listened rapt as Alejandra told her story: “Everything she was telling me was extra
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Netflix documentary A Child of My Own tells the stranger-than-fiction story of a hospital worker who went to extreme lengths in her efforts to become a mother. Its director recounts their meetings in a Mexican prison The CCTV footage of the hospital corridor is grainy but you can make out a young woman carrying an oversized gift bag. Nothing unusual there. Except that inside the bag is a newborn baby girl, just hours old. And the woman carrying the bag, walking out of the hospital’s main entrance, past two security guards who are idly chatting, is not the baby’s mother. Her name is Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, known to everyone as Alejandra. When film-maker Maite Alberdi met her in a low-security Mexican prison, Alejandra was in the final year of a 13-year jail sentence for snatching the baby. Alberdi listened rapt as Alejandra told her story: “Everything she was telling me was extra
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What happened
According to The Guardian’s linked report, ‘She wasn’t acting, she wanted to live it’: how a fake pregnancy resulted in the wildest true crime film of the year, Netflix documentary A Child of My Own tells the stranger-than-fiction story of a hospital worker who went to extreme lengths in her efforts to become a mother. Its director recounts their meetings in a Mexican prison The CCTV footage of the hospital corridor is grainy but you can make out a young woman carrying an oversized gift bag. Nothing unusual there. Except that inside the bag is a newborn baby girl, just hours old. And the woman carrying the bag, walking out of the hospital’s main entrance, past two security guards who are idly chatting, is not the baby’s mother. Her name is Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, known to everyone as Alejandra. When film-maker Maite Alberdi met her in a low-security Mexican prison, Alejandra was in the final year of a 13-year jail sentence for snatching the baby. Alberdi listened rapt as Alejandra told her story: “Everything she was telling me was extra
Context
The development sits in VINI’s Culture coverage for readers following arts, entertainment, fashion, film, music, celebrity, and the business of culture. The original report is linked so readers can check the source account, follow later updates, and compare new coverage against the first published record. The linked report is dated 2026-07-28T04:00:29+00:00.
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Source
Primary source: ‘She wasn’t acting, she wanted to live it’: how a fake pregnancy resulted in the wildest true crime film of the year via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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- ‘She wasn’t acting, she wanted to live it’: how a fake pregnancy resulted in the wildest true crime film of the yearThe Guardian - 2026-07-28T04:00:29+00:00
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