Children often benefit from having both their parents actively involved in their lives, offering financial and emotional support. Unmarried fathers may want to pursue their child custody or visitation rights. To do so, however, paternity of the child must be established. It is also necessary to establish paternity if an unmarried parent is seeking child support.

One way for a father to establish paternity in Oklahoma is through genetic testing. In most of these cases, a test known as a Buccal Swab Specimen Collection will be used to gather DNA evidence. In this test, the inside of the man’s mouth will be swabbed, and then the samples will be sent to labs to be tested. Test results are 99.9 percent accurate. However, there may be some limited circumstances in which a blood test is necessary. Usually parents will receive the results of a genetic test via mail within six weeks of having the test done.

Either parent can contact their area child support office to begin a paternity case for free. If a genetic test comes back as positive, the man will then need to reimburse the State for the cost of the genetic test. However, state genetic testing is usually less expensive than private genetic testing.

DNA testing is not the only way to establish paternity in Oklahoma. Children born to married parents are deemed to be the biological child of each spouse. In addition, a father can voluntarily acknowledge paternity of the child through signing an Acknowledgment of Paternity at the hospital when the child is born. In the end, there are options parents have when it comes to determining paternity. By reaching a determination as to who is the child’s biological father, the child’s father can pursue his custody rights, and the child’s mother can pursue child support, both of which may be crucial in raising a child in a healthy and supportive environment.