Paternity Test While Pregnant | Prenatal Paternity Test

When a woman has been with more than just the one partner and she falls pregnant, she may opt for paternity testing during pregnancy. She may want to find out who the biological father of the unborn child is, for peace of mind, for emotional or financial support and to know for sure. Paternity tests could cost from four hundred dollars to two thousand dollars. The cost will vary from the area you are living in and the type of test that is done. The test results would normally be available to the mother in five or less business days.

Paternity Testing During Pregnancy Photo by SuhelSheikh via Flickr

Establishing the paternity is imperative to ensure a child’s well being and to protect their rights. Important reasons for knowing your biological parentage would include access to social and legal benefits (social security, inheritance benefits and veterans benefit). This would also provide health care professionals with sufficient background information and understanding during diagnosis and managing a child’s health. This will also ensure to strengthen the bond between a child and their father.

Paternity analysis should be done when there is a doubt about who the father might be. There are different ways of testing for the paternity. Some of these paternity tests are tests done on blood collection, cheek swabs and umbilical cord testing. Tests can also be run on semen, hair and tissue samples.

There are also different ways of doing a prenatal paternity test (before birth). Some of the ways are by amniocentesis (they will test the amniotic fluid). Chorionic villus sampling (chorionic villi is tissue pieces attached to the uterus and have the identical genetic makeup) may also be done.

Paternity testing can be established as soon as 10 weeks or the end of the first trimester of the pregnancy. These test results are kept confidential. Some individual laboratories may have different policies in place so always ensure to ask about the confidentiality process.

Prenatal paternity testing can cause some risk factors to the unborn child and could result in a miscarriage. It is not always easy to pin point the precise date of conception. Women with regular menstrual cycles will find they will be ovulating at a certain times of each month.

Ovulation takes place when the egg is released and this is the time for conception to take place. Many women will not ovulate on the exact date of each month. Always keep in mind that sperm lives for three to five days in the body after sexual intercourse. This is the reason why it will be so hard to establish conception.

Doctors would normally calculate the first day of the woman’s last period and use the ultrasound measurements to measure the gestational age of the baby to determine the date the baby was conceived. These are just some o the tools used to calculate the dates. It may be complicated to determine the exact date of conception. Ultrasounds are not one hundred percent accurate. They can be off by up to a week in early scan results. They will be a few weeks off if they are further in the second trimester or later. Due dates are only estimates.