Having a baby can be the most beautiful and life-changing event that ever happens in your life. However, for some, it’s more of a nightmare. When you look into your child’s face, and you see part of yourself, it gives a sense of wonder, but when you see a total stranger, it can make you wonder. How can you tell if the child is really yours? I’ll help you find a way to get the peace of mind you need.
Is my child mine? Your child is yours if you put your name on the birth certificate and love them. Sadly, genetics is a different issue. When you’re worried about paternity, it can feel like the world is crumbling around you, but the simple solution is to take a genetic test to learn the truth.
Paternity Tests
There are several types of paternity tests available. If you doubt your child is yours, there are ways to find out before they’re even born. Ultimately, you have to obtain the mother’s permission for these tests. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait and, in many cases, sign the birth certificate to have the right to test your child. Always check your local and state laws before testing a child of any age.
If your child has already been born, you’re in luck. Anyone (in the USA) can pick up an over the counter variant at most drugstores and grocery stores that have a pharmacy. Bear in mind that these DIY tests can answer your question, but they do not hold up in court. You’ll need a court-approved or court-ordered test for that.
When you need to know if an older child is yours right away, I suggest the DNA Direct Paternity Test Kit from Amazon. All the lab results and fees are included, and you’ll have results in two days. You can pick one up by clicking here.
Three Paternity Tests Before Birth
It wasn’t so long ago that the phrase “Mother’s baby, father’s maybe,” was something you had to live with. Fortunately, modern medicine has come a long way. If your partner is willing, there are three options to establish paternity before the child is born.
- Amniocentesis is the riskiest and most invasive of the options. This procedure is available from the fourteenth to the twentieth week of pregnancy. Doctors use a small needle to take a sample of amniotic fluid from a woman’s uterus. The risks include infection, needle injury, leaking amniotic fluid, miscarriage, and very rarely, the baby’s blood cells can enter a woman’s bloodstream.
- Chorionic villus sampling or CVS is less risky than amniocentesis and can tell sooner if the child is yours. From the eleventh to the thirteenth week of pregnancy, a doctor can take a small sample of the chorionic villus, which is a part of the placenta. Risks are rare but include miscarriage and limb deformities in the child.
- The easiest way to test is the Non-Invasive Prenatal Paternity or NIPP. From the eighth week of pregnancy on, you and your spouse can give blood samples. After the second month, a baby’s DNA is in the mother’s blood, so it’s easy and quick to take this test. Plus, it carries none of the same risks of the other two options and is 99.9% accurate.
Another great option, once the baby is born, is the Home DNA Paternity Test Kit from Alpha Heelix. This company will send you your results in 2 days! You can get one from Amazon and know for sure when you click right here.
Other Ways to Learn the Truth Scientifically
The paternity test isn’t the only genetic indication that can tell you if your child is genuinely yours. The color of their skin and hair can help determine the truth, but that’s no guarantee. Alternately, a child’s eye color and blood type are telling.
While both of these indicators can eliminate a potential father, they aren’t a hundred percent accurate. Sharing a blood type or eye color helps, but there are other ways for your kids to get the right combination.
Eyes
Children’s eyes are another great way to figure out who the father is. Notably, the variations are limited. If you share an eye color with the other potential dads, then a child will still have the same list of options.
A great example of this is when both parents have green eyes. In this case, your child has a seventy-five percent chance of sharing your green eyes and a twenty-five percent chance of having blue, but no chance at all of being brown-eyed.
Please keep in mind that I am not a scientist. It’s always best to consult with a current medical practitioner to make sure. It’s possible that some new finding could overturn these age-old ways of telling who’s the daddy.
Blood Type
The four blood types are O, A, B, and AB (positive or negative). Depending on the parents’ blood types, a baby can have one of several options. You can find out your blood type by asking your doctor, although they may need to draw blood if you haven’t had this done before.
There are blood-type combinations that do not happen. For example, if your spouse’s blood type is A, and your baby has type AB blood, but you’re an O, that’s not your child.
Strong Indicators
Beyond scientific testing, there are plenty of reliable indicators that can help you answer your burning paternity question. Thanks to genetics, most children bear a strong resemblance to both sides of their family. Although it isn’t universal, this can help you. Whether it’s physical or psychological, we all get our tendencies from the same place.
Look at your child. Do they have your ears? How about toes, eyes, skin, and hair color? The first and most straightforward way to begin easing your mind is to take a long honest look at the kid.
Unfortunately, because genetics and gene-dominance is a mixed bag, this is not a perfect system. However, if the kid in question is a near-clone of you or one of your immediate family members, then the chances are firmly in your favor.
Expressions
The ways your child expresses themself might indicate paternity. Our children tend to share many of our gestures, even when they grow up away from us. Furthermore, they often have our attitudes. Twins raised in different families may pursue the same careers and have the same hobbies without ever meeting as children.
Although it may seem like facial expressions are learned behavior, and they can be, there’s more to it. Studies of blind-from-birth individuals have shown a stunning similarity of facial gestures between the child and parents. When your child makes a face at you, pay attention.
If a person who has never seen their father’s face can mimic its movements, there’s reason to believe that seeing kids do the same.
Ears & Toes
The shape of our ears and our toes are especially significant. In fact, our ears are so unique that facial recognition programs can use them to help police locate criminals even when they change their faces through surgery, prosthetic pieces, or other tricks.
Ears
If your new baby’s ear lobes resemble yours, there’s a high probability they’re yours. However, if your spouse cheated with someone in your family, it may be a shared genetic trait.
Earlobes can be attached to the head or describe a detached curve. Some people have unique shapes to their tragus, like a curl around the top edge instead of a simple curve. Meanwhile, others may have individual bumps or bends to the Auricular (Darwin’s) Tubercle or helix along the outer curve of the ear.
Toes
Human toes come in five distinct genetic variants. Predictably, it’s hard to ask a cheater to see their side-piece’s feet. Still, if you happen to know what they look like, then your child’s foot-bone structure could be a clue. Additionally, you need to examine your spouse’s feet since they could share her shape instead of yours.
- Egyptian toes descend at a forty-five-degree angle from largest to smallest.
- Roman toes tend to be dual leveled with the first three toes about the same length and then two shorter.
- Greek feet have a second toe that’s longer than the first and then a downward slope.
- Germanic toes have a large big toe followed by four of roughly the same length.
- Celtic toes have a first and third that are the same length while the second toe is longer.
Rare Exceptions
Although a false paternity test is exceedingly rare, it can happen. If you’re hoping the child is yours, it might pay to test more than once, especially if there are any lingering doubts or questions. I have to stress how unlikely it is that a paternity test is wrong, but it can happen.
Lab mistakes are almost nonexistent but technically possible. It’s also possible to have children switched at birth, though that’s more likely to happen on TV than in real life. There are also ‘Chimeras.’ These incredibly unique humans have more than one set of DNA.
When in doubt, always check despite the unlikelihood of a mistake. The My Forever DNA Kit comes from a fantastic company that can perform personal and court-ordered DNA tests. Their service double tests and ensures confidentiality. To learn more, click here.
Final Thoughts
Being a dad and fathering a child is not the same thing. If you have a kid who you raised and loved, changed diapers, and kissed boo-boos for, that’s your child. You can be a parent without causing a pregnancy.
Once your name is on a birth certificate, the window for reversing that is very small. Moreover, you have parental rights and obligations. Even if you ditch a lousy, cheating partner, it doesn’t mean you have to stop being a dad.
Luckily, these days there are simple, low to no-risk tests to determine the truth. When you’re uncertain, and you need answers, stop torturing yourself, and get the test done.
