Questions About Your Baby’s Father? You’re Not Alone!Dr. Janet Taylor Gives Advice

Everyone knows the classic love story. Man and woman fall in love, get married, have a baby and live happily ever after. However, real life isn’t always the fairy tale. Romantic relationships can go wrong for a multitude of reasons, including jealousy, infidelity, distrust and the list goes on. The break-up can be even more traumatic when there is a child involved. Sometimes a woman might even find herself questioning the paternity of that child and not knowing where to turn.

While there can be a negative stigma often associated with paternity testing, finding out the truth can offer emotional, financial and health benefits to parents and children. If you are a woman who has questions about the paternity of your child, try to keep the advice below in mind while confronting the issue.

You are not alone

The situation is more common than you might think. A recent survey found that one in five Americans (or 20 percent) said that they, or a close friend or family member, have questioned paternity.* It doesn’t just happen to wild, promiscuous women. Paternity questions can affect everyone.

The truth can set you free

The first step to resolving the issue is being honest – both with yourself and with the man involved. The earlier you can put the opinions or accusations of friends and family, and your own guilt, to rest, the more confident you will be moving forward with your life. Admitting that you have paternity questions is hard, but taking the steps to find out the truth can be empowering.

Remember to focus on the child

Having both biological parents involved in a child’s life is so important to the child’s health and well-being. According to researchers, children who live without their biological fathers are, on average, two to three times more likely to be poor, use drugs and experience educational, health, emotional and behavioral problems. Knowing one’s father is also important for medical reasons. Many times children are predisposed to certain medical conditions that can be traced back from their mother and father. Knowing your parents’ health history is essential to identifying some common diseases or disorders.

Taking a test is easy

Thanks to today’s technology, taking a paternity test can be fast, affordable and convenient. IDENTIGENE offers a DNA paternity test kit that is sold in drug stores and super centers and is 100 percent accurate. The kit collects DNA samples by a simple cheek swab, making the process easy and painless.

About the Survey

• *The IDENTIGENE Paternity Survey was conducted online in December 2011 with a random sample of 1039 men and women aged 18+, all members of the Impulse Research proprietary online panel.
• The Impulse Research proprietary online panel closely matches US population demographics and the respondents are representative of men and women aged 18+.
• The overall sampling error rate for this survey is +/-3% at the 95% rate of confidence

Article written by Dr. Janet Taylor, IDENTIGENE spokesperson and Community Psychiatrist.