Paternity testing is most often performed to establish blood relations for forensic or custody cases, but may also be used in adoption or immigration cases. While paternity tests are typically used to identify the father of a young child, they may also be used in inheritance cases to determine blood relations among adults.
Definition
DNA samples taken from the mother, alleged father and child are compared; any genetic material in the child that doesn't match that of the biological mother is then compared to the genetic profile of the alleged father. Sometimes more than one man may be tested for possible fatherhood of a child, or more than one child tested as potential offspring of an alleged father. Tests can also be conducted on just the alleged father and child, without including the mother.
Implications
Paternity testing can return one of two types of results. It can be done to exclude a man as the father of a baby, or to include him as the father of the baby. If the test is done for inclusion, the statistical likelihood of him being the father of the said baby will be calculated.
Testing
Paternity testing may be done with samples from a variety of sources: A swab taken from the inside of the cheek, peripheral blood or cord blood samples, amniocentesis or chorionic cilli sampling (CVS).
Results
Test results may be available in 10 days or less, depending on the method used; a more typical wait time is two to six weeks. Paternity test samples should be evaluated at a laboratory that is American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) certified.
Implications
Paternity test results are admissible as evidence in a court of law. They're also kept confidential; don't expect to get your results over the phone, and know that nobody else can access your test results without your permission.
Pregnancy
Paternity testing can be done before a child is born. CVS and amniocentesis paternity tests can be done between the 10th and 13th, or 14th and 24th, weeks of pregnancy respectively. These samples are then compared to samples taken from the mother and the alleged father.
