Hospital Questions re Father of Baby

LegacyUser

There is a section on the hospital form about the father. Do you have to give them this information or can you just tell them you don't want to give it?

Moonbeam

You do not have to but they may ask you why.

January

You do not have to give it and I doubt they'll ask why either.

edellc

You dont have to give any information that you dont want to, and its very unlikely they will ask you but if they do just say its not applicable and if you want to write something on the form where the question is just put a big N/A they get the picture

notsobusy

My friend didn't for the hospital form or the child benefit form and they never asked but she did put him on the Birth Cert. No questions asked.

iguana

You don't have to fill anything in on the hospital form but it's worth bearing in mind that there is legislation on the way that will require birth certs to have the father's name on them. I'm not sure when the law will change but it's possible that it will happen in time to effect women who are currently in early-mid pregnancy as Joan Burton has suggested she plans for it to be in by the end of this year.

Lisha

But what if some one does not genuinely not know who the father is? I really can't understand how they will legislate for this....offtopic I know

to the OP, my friends babydaddy was not involved in any way. as the others said a simple n/a on form should suffice.... a more persistant person might ask about any known family history of genetic disorders, my advice would be to just say none known and they should leave it at that

hoodwinked

Lisha wrote: »

But what if some one does not genuinely not know who the father is? I really can't understand how they will legislate for this....offtopic I know

you might have to give a list of names for DNA testing who knows???

Lisha wrote: »

to the OP, my friends babydaddy was not involved in any way. as the others said a simple n/a on form should suffice.... a more persistant person might ask about any known family history of genetic disorders, my advice would be to just say none known and they should leave it at that

can they leave it at that?

if you don't give any fathers medical history or blood type won't they have to test the baby's blood type to make sure everything is ok or won't it mean you won't be able to know until the birth which can cause major complications if it goes wrong..etc

op you don't have to put it down as far as i recall.

Sleepy

Even if the father is a scumbag criminal, it's still your moral duty to put his name down so your child has a chance of finding out potentially important medical information in their future.

And that's before even considering that a child has the human right to know who both of their parents are.

littlefriend

Sleepy wrote: »

Even if the father is a scumbag criminal, it's still your moral duty to put his name down so your child has a chance of finding out potentially important medical information in their future.

And that's before even considering that a child has the human right to know who both of their parents are.

Put his name down on what? If you are referring to the birth cert currently unless the parents are married, the mother will not be allowed put the fathers name on the birth cert unless a)he is present or b) has signed a document declaring that he is the father and permits his name on the cert. AFAIK that document must be witnessed.

Joan Burton recently said that mothers will at some time in the future have to name the father on the birth cert. I spoke to 1) the local registrar 2) community welfare officer and 3) local social welfare office and none of them knew how this could be enforced or if it ever will be.

In my case, I wanted to put my baby's fathers name on the birth cert but was not allowed. He left when he found out I was pregnant. I wanted to supply any medical details to the hospital but any attempts to get this information from him were ignored and subsequently he blocked my phone number, email address and me from facebook. He is no longer at his previous address (he was in the process of moving when I told him but I don't know where he ended up going).

Of course I will give my child as much information about him as possible but I can't make him be involved. Perhaps the OP's friend is in the same situation. It is quite bad enough to deal with the worry etc about how to explain to a child that their father didn't want them without having to deal with the insinuation that mothers in these cases are feckless, with questionable morals and lack of regard for human rights!?. Maybe focus those opinions on the fathers who have left them.

If I am picking your post up wrong I apologise.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies

Sleepy

littlefriend, the fact some men are bastards doesn't make all men bastards, all women angels or vice versa. The OP gave no details regarding her relationship with her child's father aside from the fact that she doesn't want to put his name on the hospital forms. This could be because he's a homicidal maniac or it could because she's "a woman scorned". So let's agree that neither of us should be filling in the blanks from our own viewpoints?

If you are referring to the birth cert currently unless the parents are married, the mother will not be allowed put the fathers name on the birth cert unless a)he is present or b) has signed a document declaring that he is the father and permits his name on the cert.

I wasn't actually aware of this as I was there the day we picked up our daughter's birth cert. I can see a certain logic to it to prevent men being named as fathers when they may not be but it would be nice to think this shouldn't be necessary when the document is already being witnessed (though as far as I can remember the witness in our case must've been the lady we dealt with in the local HSE office).

Sorry to hear you had such a hard time with your own ex.

littlefriend

Thanks @sleepy. Its just a difficult topic and I'm overly sensitive about it. Its a situation I never thought I'd be in. When Joan Burton's plans were in the media there was a lot of negativity spoken about single mothers. It was both hurtful and irritating to listen to this stuff as people were wrongly assuming fathers weren't being named so that the mother could claim extra social welfare benefits.

Anyway, as I said, I'm sorry if I picked up your post in the wrong way.

Orion

littlefriend wrote: »

Put his name down on what? If you are referring to the birth cert currently unless the parents are married, the mother will not be allowed put the fathers name on the birth cert unless a)he is present or b) has signed a document declaring that he is the father and permits his name on the cert. AFAIK that document must be witnessed.

An unmarried mother can also get a court order naming the father. See the section on unmarried parents here.

To get back on topic* regarding the hospital forms - which are totally unrelated to the birth certificate - you do not need to provide any information about the father that you do not want to. These are medical forms only not official registration documents. While it may be beneficial to provide a medical history of the father, if known, it's completely up to you.

* yes that's a subtle hint from a mod