It’s something that we often don’t think about, so if you know a neonatal nurse ask her how that is taken care of and at what point the parents have a birth certificate in their hands.
Everyone that I knew had it or a temporary in their hands before leaving the hospital.
I would think that the hospital with all the data right there — parents name, child’s name, address, gender, date of birth, etc — would provide that directly to the registrar of births rather than leaving that up to the parents to screw up.
Because of the prevalence of identity theft today, hospitals only issue “ceremonial” birth certificates.
There is federal law [Section 7211 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA)] that establishes the criteria for a “real” birth certificate and it can only be issued by a governmental body because it must have a government seal and an authorizing signature.
Regarding the proceedure used at Kapiolani Hospital during the first week of August in 1961, Eleanor Nordyke said: “I entered the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital on early Friday afternoon, August 4, 1961. I was registered and my expected twins were given Hawaii State birth certificate numbers 10637 and 10638. My labor was slow with poor contractions from a distended uterus.
Apparently, Stanley Ann Dunham Obama came in shortly after I arrived, because her baby was registered as number 10641. Her labor was strong, and she delivered Barack Hussein Obama early that evening. The next morning my contractions strengthened. The twins finally emerged at 2:05 and 2:12 p.m. Saturday, August 5th. By the way, I don’t want to do that again!”