DNA Parentage Testing
Parentage and Relationship Testing
Parentage testing is used to determine whether and alleged individual is the biological parent of a child. In legal practice parentage testing is extensively used in immigration cases, child support cases and in situations when the birth certificate has to be amended to include or change a parent.
The parentage report contains two pieces of information required for interpretation of the data:
The Combined Parentage index (CPI) — indicates how many times the alleged parent is more likely to be the biological parent of the child as opposed to another individual. For example, a CPI of 15,000 indicates that the alleged parent is 15,000 times more likely to be the true parent of the child than another individual.
The Probability of Parentage — is the probability that the alleged parent is the biological parent of the child. This statistic, expressed as a percentage, is an alternative interpretation of the CPI.
Parentage testing can be conducted both prenatally (predominantly paternity) and postnatally (paternity and maternity). DNA samples are routinely collected by mouth swab however; blood, hair or pathology tissue samples can also be used. Commonly 16 genetic markers are looked at, achieving a probability of parentage of more than 99.99%.
