Invent a Child :-)

[Rachael1880]

Hey All

Thought my title may have got your attention! Myself and husband have a 2 year old and maybe it was the lack of sleep but we got thinking, and this is what we were thinking and couldnt work out the answer :-)

Is it possible to:

A) Could you have a child in a hospital and fail to register it with the registrar within the 42 days, therefore having no birth certificate, would 'Big Brother' DWP etc know that a child had been bor a d their details?

B) is it possible to walk into a registry office, and let them know that a totally made up child had been born, give a false name and get a birth certificate, after all you dont need to take anything into the registry office as proof of being a parent or proof of being married etc?

We dont want to invent another child, the one we have is a handful and an imaginary one might just tip us over the edge, gets you thinking though.

the hospital alert the registar that a child has been born

Ahhh that would make a little more sense, I didnt realise thy passed info accross, what do they pass over? Mother name and time/place of birth etc etc. Do they also check things like if your married or just take your word for it??

Erm your baby gets allocated an nhs number at birth and you have to take documents given by your mw to the registry office and your local gp surgery. I think the mw must do some kind of registration when your not looking . I'm fairly sure I also had to take my marriage certificate (or if i didn't i think dh has to if they are registering the birth without the mother being present?)

I never did the gp bit until after 42 days (I didn't bloody know ok!) and so although they have his name, when I took him to a&e last month, they still had him registered as "baby prudence"

I suppose your child could be "off grid" if you had an unassisted home birth and you never informed your gp/mw of pregnancy? Not a theory I fancy testing out

haha no not a theory I would wish to find out either, the more we thought about it the more we got talking, we lead sad lives!!

So I guess the registrar has a lot of info to hand before you even get to the office, I know years ago illegitimate children often were registered by other family members who were in 'Wedlock' I guess this cant really happen anymore if the details are passed over to the registrar, which is a good thing

I cant recall if we had to take our marriage certificate or not?

We registered the birth and they already had basic info from the hospital. I guess they would come looking if a birth (or indeed a neonatal death ) did not get registered within the 6 weeks or whatever it is to match up with the records from the hospital.

I guess off grid or relative-claimed babies must exist even today in the UK, but I doubt for very happy reasons.

Yeah good point, but if they pass the mother name to the registrat it may now be difficult to falsify the record by giving a different name as it wouldn't match, perhaps??

I wont go into if you have a baby whilst on a flight, do you have to pinpoint your location to see where the birth is registered, just messing

My friend registered her baby on the latest day possible,and when she walked in the registrar said..........ah this must be xxxxx.

She already knew the name an EVERYTHING!