During pregnancy, can I determine the risk my baby has for developing sickle cell disease?
To discover whether your unborn child has inherited sickle cell, you and your partner can seek prenatal testing. The first step is to be tested to find out if you and your partner are both sickle cell carriers. If one or both of you are NOT carriers, then your baby will not have sickle cell disease. If you are both carriers, then your baby might have the disease. Early in the pregnancy, a doctor can use either chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis to get a sample of tissue from the fetus. A lab then tests the tissue to determine if the fetus has inherited the change in the beta-globin gene. A baby that inherits only one changed beta-globin gene will be a carrier. A baby that inherits two changed beta-globin genes will have sickle cell disease. Be sure to talk with your obstetrician or a genetic counselor about your options. If I DON’T have the sickle cell gene, can I have children who DO have the gene? If you’re not a carrier, your children cannot inherit the gene from you. They c
