Using a birth certificate or hospital record
A birth certificate or hospital record may give the time of birth, which is usually the most reliable source available to a family.
What it is
In India, certificates often record the time in local (IST) time. Hospital records may use a 24-hour clock and sometimes the time of the delivery's recording rather than the birth itself, so check what the record means.
How it is worked out or read
Convert the recorded time to the local time the tool expects, and make sure the UTC offset is set. The offset for India is 5.5 hours, covered in the IST article.
Where it appears on this site
The time goes into the birth chart. See how to get a birth time for other sources.
What the certificate records
A birth certificate issued by a municipal or civil registration authority records the date and place of birth and the parents' details, but in many places it does not record the time. In India, the registration form under the Registration of Births and Deaths system has varied in what it asks over the years, and many older certificates have no time at all. So the certificate is often the best source for the date and place, but not for the time.
Where to find the time
The best source for the time is usually the hospital's own record: the labour room register, the delivery notes or the discharge summary. Hospitals keep such records for some years and may provide a copy on request. For births at home, the time may survive in a family diary, a letter, or the horoscope made soon after birth by the family astrologer, which often records the time in hours and minutes or in ghatis after sunrise. Parents' memories are valuable but are often rounded to the nearest quarter or half hour.
Which moment is the birth?
Traditional texts discuss which moment should count as birth: the first cry, the first breath, the full emergence of the body, or the cutting of the cord. Hospital records usually note the time of delivery. In practice the difference between these moments is usually a minute or two, small compared with the rounding in most records, and most modern practitioners simply use the recorded delivery time.
Checking the time zone and format
Before using a recorded time, check that it is in local standard time, which for India means IST for most births since the late 1940s, and that it is unambiguous about AM and PM. Twenty-four-hour times in hospital records avoid that problem. A time written as 12:00 can be noon or midnight, and a date near midnight should be checked against the record's other entries. For births abroad, check whether daylight saving time was in force.
When no time is available
If no reliable time can be found, a chart can still be made for the date and place. The Moon's sign and nakshatra will usually be right for most of the day, and the planets' signs almost always, but the Lagna and houses will be uncertain. A reader should say so plainly and base any reading on the Moon and planets rather than the houses. Rectification, estimating the time from life events, is possible but uncertain, and is discussed in its own article.