To think all babies should be DNA tested at birth

[ohagape]

After reading that awful thread in step parenting where the poor guy wasn't even his 'sons' father and handed loads of money over to the horrible sounding mother, I really think all babies should be DNA tested as soon as they are born with the potential father/s, whether from a good relationship or not.

It would save a lot of heartbreak and wasted time and money. It can easily be told by blood types. My whole life my mum told me I had a different blood type. Then when I found out at my booking bloods and told her she got really confused about my dad's blood type. I really thought my dad wasn't my dad so he went and did a DNA test to reassure me. AIBU to think this should be a routine thing at all births and father's name shouldn't be on the birth certificate until it's done?

I dont think they know how rare chimerism is as Raspberry says, i read they think it could occur in much higher frequency in multiple births

Also isn't there the possibility that some cases of chimerism could be mistakenly assumed to be cases where the mother had been lying about the baby's paternity?

What was the gist of it, Mrs?

Phd in developmental genetics here.

As many of you have said, blood type can't be used to determine paternity

As to how common chimeras are, well no one has a clue but I personally suspect it's much more common than we've thought. Certain forms of mosaicism are almost universal in females - for genes on the X chromosome for example. You only need one copy of the X so one copy randomly shuts down in each cell, preventing double dosage of gene products. The severity of certain X based disorders in girls can vary hugely depending on what proportion of their cells have the 'bad' allele active. Of course that's a slightly different thing from paternity, which looks at many loci from across the genome, but it shows us that the concept of chimerism is widespread.

And op, no, we shouldn't DNA test babies any more than we do now. The implications for privacy are immense. So let's say we recorded an entire genome at birth. Now think of the information you have there. And what, say, insurance companies could do with it... If you had a gene which predisposed to breast cancer for example, or Alzheimer's. Now because the insurance company know you can't get life insurance...

It's a can of worms. I don't doubt that it's not far off though as sequencing technologies get faster and cheaper.

If this was followed by the statement:
and all biological fathers would be bound to pay a living standard of maintenance until said baby is 18 on pain of imprisonment
you know what? I wouldn't have a problem.

How come the tiny minority of mothers who lie are held to so much more greater scrutiny than the significant minority of non-resident fathers who pay nothing?

Both failings are a pretty shit thing to do to a child and I have little sympathy for any parent of any gender who lets their child down so badly. But I get very cross that this sort of thing produces such outrage and yet failing to keep the wolves from the door for your biological child is somehow so accepted.

Yy pounding.

Seems an incredibly daft idea put forward by the OP but really came on to clarify that the 20% figure that people have been quoted comes from a study that was in my old psychology book. Haven't got a copy of the book at home sadly otherwise would provide a reference. However the other study in the book put the figure of cuckoldly at 1.4% which to be honest seems much more realistic. Never took the 20% figure too seriously and used to joke about where they took their sample from.

MrsDeVere, MNHQ may reconsider if asked - I'll ask!

Can't see how this would help people avoid heartache. You might be able to force the actual father to pay maintenance if he could be tracked down, but you couldn't force him to be a parent.

On the other hand I am sure that there are plenty of people who are happy not to know. It's not as though a family can't exist without blood relationships.

Re medical history, showing that somebody isn't a parent doesn't give any information about the medical issues that the real father may have.

Pounded Now retired, donated quite a few samples as a fit medical student, your suggestion worries me.

I think pounded meant fathers other than sperm donors, drat.