Paternity DNA testing: how do I use my home testing kit?

Companies that offer testing services such as immigration testing and paternity DNA testing rely on the use of mouth swabs to collect DNA. They will also provide you with a home testing kit to collect your samples. Medical blood draws was the standard method for testing in the past when DNA testing was still in its initial stages.

Advances in the field of DNA testing means that blood is now often discouraged as a sampling method because it involves needles and can be overall quite distressful for some people. Today most sampling is done via a mouth swab.

What is a ‘mouth swab’?

A mouth swabs looks very much like a cotton bud but is of course, sterile. Collecting DNA samples with oral swabs is simple and more importantly, absolutely painless. Mouth swabs are simply rubbed in the mouth, under the tongue and on the inside of the cheeks. Often we refer to these as saliva samples but DNA testing does not use the saliva but the cells which are removed from the layer of cells which lines mouth (this layer is known as the epithelium).

What about the ‘at-home’ test and the kit?

The fact that it is an ‘at-home’ test means that you collect samples for the home paternity test in the comfort of your own home and that you are responsible for them. This saves the unnecessary time, hassles and added costs of involving doctors or nurses. The kit is normally sent to clients after they have settles their payment in full or sometimes partially. Once they have collected their samples they simply send back everything to an address provided and wait for their results. The company you choose will give you a time frame with in which to expect your results.

What do I find in the DNA testing kit?

The home DNA testing kit usually contains colored envelopes, each color allocated to a person involved in the test; the father’s envelope would, for example, be blue and the mother’s pink. In each envelope there are the sterile buccal/oral swabs which after sampling must be placed back into the envelope they came from. It is very important to place the swabs into the correct envelope and not mix-up samples. Click here for more information.

The kit also contains submission forms. A submission form requires the basic details for each person being tested are given as well as a signature for each. Thus if mother, father and child are doing a DNA test, the submission forms will need 3 signature; a signature for each. If the child is under the age of 16, then a legal guardian can place their signature in the place of the child’s.

DNA testing is today simple, especially given the standard use of mouth swabs and home DNA testing kits. Saliva samples offer just a high a success rate as other high success sample like blood, but are much simpler to collect. The company you choose should guide you and give you all the information regarding home testing kit needed for you paternity DNA test, predisposition DNA test or any other test you require.