Dad More Involved If Paternity Is Confirmed Early
By Charnicia E. Huggins

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Among unwed parents, fathers whose paternity is established in the hospital, rather than after their newborn's mother is discharged, are more likely to support the child and to be involved in the child's life, new study findings show.

"We now have an effective way that establishes a basis in the future to get child support should the parents later fall out and be unwilling to share financial responsibilities," study author Dr. Ronald Mincy, of Columbia University in New York City, told Reuters Health.

Each year, one out of every three births are to unwed parents and, research shows, female-headed families with children are five times as likely to live in poverty than their married counterparts. Child support orders are unlikely to be given to children born out of wedlock, unless paternity is first determined.

Since 1967, Congress has passed amendments to the Social Security Act, including provisions geared toward increasing the establishment of paternity for children born to unwed parents, to limit the increasing numbers of individuals receiving welfare.

In 1993, the effort was strengthened via a new federal act that requires hospitals to establish in-hospital paternity acknowledgment programs. Three years later, the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act further raised the goals of paternity establishment, and increased financial penalties, by requiring states to prohibit men from having their names on a child's birth certificate without first signing a document acknowledging his paternity.

In the current study, researchers found that the "mandates to increase paternity establishment rates in PRWORA were not only effective in increasing the proportion of children who receive support from their nonresident fathers, but they also were effective in increasing fathers' contact and involvement with their children."

The researchers analyzed information collected from 3,254 women in 15 states who were unmarried at the time of their child's birth. At the follow-up interview, conducted a year later, nearly 1,700 mothers were not living with the child's father.

Based on the women's responses, more than three quarters of the unmarried fathers had seen their child during the previous month, and a similar proportion had had at least one overnight visit since their child's birth.

Furthermore, almost 80 percent of the men paid some amount of child support. Surprisingly, the researchers note, high levels of parental involvement were reported for not only resident fathers, but also for those who did not live with their child's mother.

Fathers whose paternity was established in the hospital were more likely to have seen their child during the previous 30 days than those whose paternity was established at a later time or whose paternity was never established. These fathers were also more likely to pay some child support, Mincy and his team report in the August issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

While the child support may have been mandatory, the same is not true of the fathers' involvement and contact with their child. "In a way that is more a reflection of the kinds of fathers who are there in the hospital" while the mother is giving birth to their child, Mincy said. The presence of these unwed fathers suggests "higher quality relationships" with the mother, he said, so "these are fathers who are likely to be involved with their children after the fact."

In-hospital paternity is most likely to be established among couples with higher levels of education, health, work, no history of incarceration and no reliance on welfare, Mincy's group reports.

In-hospital paternity was also more likely to be established when the father contributed financially during the pregnancy, had no other children and was otherwise supportive of the child's mother and committed to the child's birth.

"Increasing fathers' involvement very early in the lives of their nonmarital children may prove to be beneficial for their children's long-term well-being," Mincy's group added