Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Paternity Test Tips

By Jane Bear

Long ago it was legal for a child's heritage if a man claimed that he is the father of the child. Presently with the dawn of the new age in science and technology, everything seems to be attainable. With high tech gadgets and state of the art innovative devices, one can easily do what might be unimaginable decades ago, like detecting a fingerprint, a lying person, and even determining the father of your child through paternity testing.

Not only does paternity testing help to disclose who the real father of a child is, it can also help solve cases that involve conception, child claims, or when a mother's faithfulness is challenged, and rape, particularly nowadays where reported rape cases have escalated. There are a lot of reasons that paternity testing might need to be done, but the motive varies with every situation.

Depending on what kind of test that needs to be performed and the level of investigation, the cost of testing ranges from affordable to very expensive. Also, depending upon the category and size of the samples to be tested, costs vary from lab to lab. You have to make sure that an external body accredits the lab; and you should also know the percentage error of that lab, and the degree of certainty the lab offers before you hire your lab to perform your DNA paternity test. Some poorer quality labs may guarantee only 98% certainty while some expensive labs offer a 99.9999% accuracy which can be a big difference.

But some paternity tests are affordable. Home paternity tests are not hard use and inexpensive. Performing a legal paternity test is easy and harmless without having any displeasure to anyone involved. It can be performed in the your own home through a paternity test kit, which provides complete equipments that are needed such as swabs, forms, and containers.

In order to acquire DNA samples of each of the parties involved, a buccal swab is used from the inside cheeks. The alleged father and the child need to be tested, and it might be useful to test the mother as well. The samples are then placed in a tube, labeled and then sent to a laboratory for DNA testing and comparison. Then the results are mailed back to you as quickly as possible.

DNA paternity testing involves the comparison of the DNA samples of a father, his child and for some cases, including the mother. All of us have 23 pairs of chromosome, half of it we inherit from our father and half from our mother. If uniformity is found between a man and his child, without a doubt, he is the biological father. The DNA of the mother can aid by removing her DNA from the equation.

There are some who perform paternity testing before the baby is born for legal issues or physiological reason such as in cases of rape. It may be beneficial to perform prenatal paternity test in cases of multiple partners to begin a proceeding for medical bills and support. Prenatal paternity testing is done before childbirth and depending on the way you choose, determines when the test is performed. You can choose between amniocentesis and blood samples. Although there are risks involved when performing amniocentesis like injuring the fetus or aborting it and other different risks.

Paternity testing can easily help a family to find out if there is a biological relationship between a father and a child. Knowing who the real father of the child is the most crucial thing about getting the results of the test. And perhaps the most painful thing is that when you realize that the child you raised is not yours.

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