Love Beauty >> Love Beauty >  >> FAQ >> Beauty and Health >> Womens Health >> Childbirth

Paternity Testing & Ultrasound Accuracy: A Detailed Analysis


Question
QUESTION: A girl has been telling me that i'm the father of her unborn child. She had a doctors appointment (i think it was for ultrasound) and she found out how far along she is. On Sept. 21 she was 13 weeks and 2 days. We had sex on July 5th. I used a condom the first time, and the second I didn't but i never ejaculated inside of her. When I did the math I found out that she was already 14 days pregnant before we had sex. So my question is, how accurate are they nowadays when they tell you how far along you are and stuff? And should i feel worried that it could be mine still?

ANSWER: I think your math may be a little bit off in this case. If she conceived on July 5th (when you two had sex), she would have been 13 weeks and 1 day by my calculations- which is just one day off from the ultrasound. Her due date should be around March 28th. While ultrasounds can be a bit off in the first trimester (by up to 2 weeks sometimes), it's measuring in almost perfect accordance with a conception date of July 5th. The further along the woman is in pregnancy (and 13 weeks is at the very end of the 1st trimester, which would make the ultrasound prediction fairly accurate), the more accurate ultrasound measurements tend to be.

Unless she had sex with another man a day or two before or after having sex with you, I think it is highly likely- based on this information alone- that you are the father of this child. Please keep in mind that you can get a woman pregnant with the "pull out" method as pre-ejaculate does contain sperm as well.

If you are still concerned about the paternity of this child, I always recommend to have a DNA paternity test done once the child is born. However, just based on this information, I think this girl is correct in naming you.

Please let me know if I can help you further or with anything else.

Best wishes,
Helen =)

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks a lot! and i'm not going to argue with you i'm sure you know more than me. But I was just wondering, how did you do your calculations?
What I did was that i counted how many days is in between july 5th and sept 21st and substracted that from the number of days in 13 weeks and 2 days and that's how i got 14 days.

Answer
With a woman's cycle, it's not that easy. First of all, ovulation and conception occurs in the middle of her cycle- about the 14th day. Then there's a difference between gestational age and the amount of time between her last menstrual cycle, or LMP (last menstrual period).

So what I did was I took her estimated conception date- July 5th- and calculated when her LMP (last menstrual period) was, which would have been June 21st. From there, you count gestational age from the date of conception. If conception occurred on July 5th (which would be 2 weeks past LMP), Thursday July 12th would have put her at 1 week gestational age but 3 weeks from LMP. This would put her, at Thursday September 20th, as 13 weeks from LMP and a gestational age of 11 weeks.

Now, if you know that the gestational age of the fetus is 13 weeks and she is due around March 14th, then that would essentially rule you out as the father. However, I was just going off of the little information you gave me. I would ask her when her due date is and do the calculations based from that and/or what her baby's gestational age and measurements were during the ultrasound.

I still recommend getting a paternity test, however, because a two-week period is rather close to call.

Best wishes,
Helen =)