Certificate of Live Birth Vs. Certification of Live Birth

If you were born in the United States, the record of your birth was filed with the appropriate government agency by the hospital administration or the physician attending your birth. All birth records or certificates of live births are filed with a registration number and the name of the person registering the document. The information can be used to obtain the certification of live birth, which is a copy of the original certificate.

The Certificate of Live Birth is the standard certified long form filled out in hospitals. This document is turned over to the State Register, where the information is kept on file. From the certificate of live birth or the original, a copy called the live birth certification is obtained. The Certification of Live Birth represents the short form of the original certified photo copy.

This certification of live birth or birth certificate enables a person to obtain important documents such as social security number and benefits and passports. It gives people permission to attend school, and to obtain such things as life insurance, health insurance, tax credits and child benefits, especially if you are applying for assistance from a state government agency.

The Certificate of Live Birth will include personal, precise and detailed information on both parents and the baby, including ethnicity, birth weight of child and the manner in which the child was born; such as vaginally or C-section. It will also include information on what number rank of birth it is at the time of delivery. Certification of Live Birth just shows the city and state for the place of birth, name of the hospital, the parent's names, ages and job titles, and the signature of the attending physician.

You can replace a lost birth certificate by filing out the necessary form, which can be obtained from the online Vital Statistics Records from the state where you were born. Once the form is filled out, you can mail the document in along with the searching and processing fee. The copy of your birth record will be sent to you within a few weeks.

For a certification of live birth document to be legal, it must be from a State Registrar with a stamp, seal and signed by a person commissioned by the government, preferably the registrar. While having a certificate of live birth is important, it is not proof alone of a person's identity. For identification purposes, a person must also have a government issued ID, social security number and a birth certificate.