Whether you’re settling a court case or you’re an adopted child wondering about your biological parents, paternity tests can offer conclusive results and peace of mind. However, when you take the test at home, you may wonder about the accuracy. How do home paternity tests work—and are they accurate? Let’s look at the facts.
Early Paternity Tests
For over a century, scientists have been working on reliable ways to determine a person’s paternity. In the beginning, it was blood typing. Parents pass on sets of genes to their biological children, including blood type. If the lab knows the blood types of both the subject and their mother, they can narrow down the father’s blood type—but they can’t say for sure.
DNA Fingerprints
DNA-based paternity testing first became available in 1988 and has slowly improved over the years. American Screening’s selection of home paternity tests and other medical lab supplies online boast superior quality and accuracy. With access to a person’s full genome, a DNA test—whether at home or in the lab—is much more accurate than blood typing. These days, a home paternity test, much like other DNA tests, involves only a simple cheek swab. A home paternity test requires DNA samples (cheek swabs) from the child, the biological mother, and any potential fathers.
Comparing and Contrasting
There are two main methods of comparing genomes across multiple potential parents. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) requires blood samples and compares DNA sequences at unique sites on the chain. However, blood collection for DNA testing purposes is unnecessarily invasive and painful.
Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is more accurate than RFLP, and it works on a cheek swab instead of a blood sample. The process duplicates a small sample of DNA into a much longer chain that’s easier to analyze. DNA fragments are tagged with fluorescent tags suspended in a gel. The lab compares those DNA gels between the child and any potential fathers. If roughly half of the DNA is the same between the child and a potential father, the test establishes paternity at 99.99 percent accuracy.
Collection and Accuracy
A home paternity test boasts the same accuracy as a test you’d take at the doctor’s office, because the collection method is the same. Swab your cheek at home, collect cheek swabs from the child, the mother, and any other potential fathers, and mail them off to the lab.
Because PCR-based tests have become the gold standard for paternity testing, you can depend on one to boast 99.99 percent accuracy.
How do home paternity tests work, and are they accurate? Easy: they work as simply as swabbing your cheek, and they’re as accurate as a test performed at the doctor’s office when analyzed properly. A quick cheek swab, available among American Screening Corp myriad medical lab supplies online, will give you a reliable answer.
