Can I Tell Through a Blood Test if a Baby Is Mine
Before Birth, Dad's ID
It is an uncomfortable question that, in today'southward world, is often asked by expectant mothers who had more than one male person partner at the fourth dimension they became significant. Who is the father?
With more than one-half of births to women under xxx now out of union, information technology is a question that may arise more than often.
Now blood tests are condign bachelor that tin can determine paternity equally early as the eighth or 9th week of pregnancy, without an invasive procedure that could crusade a miscarriage.
As well relieving anxiety, the test results might let women to end a pregnancy if the preferred man is not the begetter — or to continue it if he is.
Men who conspicuously know they are the father might be more willing to support the woman financially and emotionally during the pregnancy, which some studies propose might atomic number 82 to healthier babies.
And if the tests proceeds legal acceptance, some lawyers say, women and state governments might one day pursue child support payments without having to expect until the nativity. Under electric current constabulary, "until and unless the pregnancy produces a child, whatever costs associated with it are regarded as the woman'southward personal trouble," said Shari Motro, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
The testing itself, still, can be awkward because it requires a blood sample from at least one of the possible fathers.
Courtney Herndon, after breaking upward with her fellow, had a brief relationship with a man she regarded more as a friend. She found herself meaning at age 19, without knowing which human being was the male parent.
The friend also wanted to know, and then he agreed to the testing. He turned out to be the father, and the two agreed on child support even before the infant was born.
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"I got the exam done and was able to go on with my life," said Ms. Herndon, who lives in Fort Polk, La.
Estimates of the extent of paternal uncertainty vary.
Studies have constitute a discrepancy rate — when the presumed father is not the biological father — of anywhere from 0.eight percent to 30 percent, with the median being 3.vii percent, according to one review of such studies. Another report found that nearly 9 percent of nascency certificates in Florida, even excluding births to teenage mothers, did not list the full names of the father, though it was not clear how much of this was related to uncertainty. Infant mortality was higher in those cases than if the male parent's name was on the nascence document.
It has already been possible to decide paternity during pregnancy using amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, the same medical procedures used to examination a fetus for Down syndrome. But those procedures are invasive and carry a pocket-sized take chances of inducing a miscarriage, and so they are rarely used for paternity testing.
By contrast, the new tests require only claret samples from the pregnant woman and the potential father. And doctors generally do non take to be involved.
That could vastly expand testing, said Sara Katsanis of Duke University'southward Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy. She is planning a study with i of the testing companies to see if prenatal paternity testing tin can reduce a pregnant woman'due south stress.
Some noninvasive paternity tests have been offered over the Cyberspace for most a decade, and there have been various complaints about inaccurate or even fraudulent results.
But experts say the engineering science has advanced to the bespeak that such testing can at present be washed reliably. A cursory newspaper describing one such exam, developed by a visitor called Ravgen, was published recently in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
"I take no doubt that these tests will work clinically," said Dr. Mark I. Evans, a professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and managing director of Comprehensive Genetics, a medical practice in New York that specializes in prenatal testing.
The tests analyze fragments of Deoxyribonucleic acid from the fetus that are present in the mother's blood in tiny amounts. The same arroyo is at present also being used to noninvasively determine the gender of the fetus or whether information technology has Down syndrome. And researchers recently demonstrated that they could fifty-fifty decide a fetus's entire genome this way.
Ravgen, a small-scale company in Columbia, Physician., has been offering its exam on a limited ground and charges $950 to $one,650, depending on the circumstances, said Dr. Ravinder Dhallan, the chief executive.
Another examination was developed by a visitor in Silicon Valley called Natera, and is marketed by DNA Diagnostics Eye, a leading provider of conventional paternity tests. Thousands of the prenatal tests have been ordered since going on sale last August, executives say. The cost is $1,775, compared with around $500 for a conventional postbirth paternity examination.
Paradigm
Neither examination has received a certification for accurateness that is necessary for employ in child custody cases, though Natera has applied. The certifying organization, the AABB, is seriously considering whether it should certify prenatal tests, said Eduardo Nunes, senior director for policy, standards and global development at the arrangement, formerly known as the American Clan of Blood Banks.
Still, some experts urge caution. Natera has non yet published any data about its examination in peer-reviewed journals. Ravgen's paper in The New England Journal of Medicine discussed just 30 samples. (The examination correctly distinguished the father from a randomly chosen homo in all 30 cases.)
The tests could generate controversy if they led to more abortions. Nonetheless, Matthew Rabinowitz, chief executive of Natera, said that if a woman were intent on terminating a pregnancy based on paternity, she could nevertheless become an invasive exam. And Dr. Dhallan of Ravgen said the test could persuade women who learned they were pregnant after a rape to proceed the babe if they learned the rapist was not the father.
Ravgen's test has been used in a murder case. In 2008, Michael Roseboro, a funeral dwelling house director in Lancaster County, Pa., was accused of killing his wife, Jan, whose body was plant in the family pond pool.
To establish a motive, prosecutors wanted to prove that Mr. Roseboro was having an affair with another woman, who was pregnant. Simply they did not desire to expect until the infant was born.
"We became concerned that she might take an abortion, or something would happen and we'd never be able to determine whose child it was," said Craig Stedman, the district chaser in Lancaster County.
The show from the prenatal test was not introduced at trial, even so, because Mr. Roseboro eventually conceded that he was the male parent. Mr. Roseboro, who still proclaims his innocence in his wife's expiry, was sentenced to life in prison.
It is possible that early testing could mean more paternal support for a pregnant adult female.
One Seattle-area woman said that when she was significant, with 2 possible fathers, "Neither one really wanted to be involved and then find out the babe wasn't theirs later."
When the prenatal test showed that the father was her former boyfriend, he attended the delivery and supported the child. The woman spoke on the condition of anonymity, explaining, "I'm not proud of not knowing who my son's father was."
In some cases DNA is not destiny. Ms. Herndon'south test showed that the baby was not her ex-swain'southward. But they got back together and married, and he accepted the child, who is now 16 months old.
"We view our daughter equally ours, mine and my married man's," Ms. Herndon said. The biological father sends gifts and pays child support.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/health/paternity-blood-tests-that-work-early-in-a-pregnancy.html
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