To congratulate you on the birth of your child, the Pennsylvania Department of Health is pleased to present you with your child's birth certificate. This is your child's first official identification, so please keep it in a safe location. Your child will use this birth certificate for future milestones, like registering for school, applying for a driver's license, getting a passport and verifying their U.S. citizenship for their first job.
If you need additional copies of your child's birth certificate, please visit Ordering a Birth Certificate page.
Please review your child's birth certificate to make sure everything is accurate and spelled correctly. If your child's birth certificate contains an error, it is easiest to correct the error prior to your child's first birthday. The following information provides direction on how to correct errors on your child's birth certificate.
If your child is over one year of age and a correction to their birth certificate is needed, please refer to the Amending a Birth Record for more information.
The information listed on your child's birth certificate is based on the Report of Live Birth submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. If you delivered your baby in a licensed Pennsylvania birth facility, you likely were provided with a Birthing Parent's Worksheet which is used to collect information to be included on the Report of Live Birth. The birthing facility then entered information from the Birthing Parent's Worksheet into an electronic Report of Live Birth which is submitted directly to us. While most Reports of Live Birth are submitted with 100% accuracy, sometimes typographical errors do occur.
To correct this type of error, complete the Request to Modify an Infant's Birth Record. Do not use this form to add a parent to a child's birth record.
Based on national standards, all parent's names as printed on a birth certificate list the parent's legal name prior to first marriage (also referred to as a maiden last name).
All parents listed on the birth certificate must sign the Request to Modify an Infant's Birth Record. The form also needs notarized if one of the following applies:
To modify parentage on a child’s birth record, complete a Request to Modify Parentage on a Birth Record form. Any removal of a parent from a child’s record requires a court order or an approved cancellation of an Acknowledgement of Paternity. Please note that a maximum of two parents may be listed on a child’s birth record in Pennsylvania.
This form may not be used to modify a birth record due to adoption.
If you were married at the time of your child's birth, then the birthing parent's spouse is the child's legal parent unless a specialized registration process has been used to list a biological parent on your child's birth record.
To remove a parent from a birth record, we must receive a court order that provides appropriate detail on why the parent's name is being removed. At no time will we add a third parent to a child's birth record. Therefore, if the courts have determined that someone other than the individual(s) listed on a birth record is a parent of the child, then the court must issue a court order to first remove the individual who is not the parent of the child.
If you have a certified copy of a court order to remove a parent from your child's birth record, you may submit a Request to Modify Parentage on a Birth Record along with the certified copy of the court order (which must include the raised seal of the court).