You are genetic counselor, and a couple comes to you with concerns that if they

Question

You are genetic counselor, and a couple comes to you with concerns that if they have a child together, he or she could have sickle-cell anemia. Genetic tests reveal that both the man and woman are carriers for sickle-cell anemia. How should you advise them? All of their children will have a 25% chance of having sickle-cell anemia. While none of their children will have sickle-cell anemia, each child will have a 50% chance of being a carrier. All of their children will have sickle anemia. Half of their children will have sickle-cell anemia, and the other half will be carriers. There are no concerns, because none of their offspring have a chance of inheriting the sickle-cell allele.

Explanation / Answer

Yes its true, all their children will have a 25% chance of having sickle cell anemia, as sickle cell anemia ia a autosomal recessive trait and since both the parents are carriers there is a 25% chance for this trait to be passed down to the new born. As a counselor you can advise them not to have children, or if they still go a head with baby then a prenatal test (on the unborn baby) can be done from 10 weeks of pregnancy onwards, depending on the type of test used. The usual tests offered are chorionic villus sampling (CVS) or amniocentesis.

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