DH has mild haemophilia, if we have a girl, she could be affected, would you find out sex of baby? I really don't want to.

[MinkyBorage]

OK, that sounds like a bit of a no-brainer. A bit more detail. DH has very mild haemophilia, which we only found out about quite recently, we already have two dds, both of whom could be affected, but we won't know until they have proper tests (when a bit older) and neither show signs now. If we find out that we are having a girl, then the haemophilia centre will write a letter to the midwife/consultant regarding the delivery stating that forceps should not be used because the baby may have mild haemophilia. However, with my last two deliveries, they came out so quickly, two pushes first time, one the next, I feel sure that it is extremely unlikely that forceps will even be a consideration, and in the event that they are, surely I could say no to them even if we don't know what we are having.
I just don't want to find out what sex the baby is, it's the best surprise ever when they're born.
What would you do?

OK here, look at this.

Xn = normal X.
Xh = haemophilia X
y = Y.

So the possible combinations are

• Mum XnXn Dad XnY = all babies normal.

• Mum carrier XhXn Dad Xy (normal)
  babies have 50% chance of getting Xh or Xn.
  So you can get a boy - XnY = normal boy, or XhY, haemophiliac boy. so for a boy, 50/50 for having the illness. For a girl, similar to boys, can be XnXn or XnXh - so will have 50/50 chance of being a carrier.

• Or as in this case, mum XnXn and dad XhY.

Boys will all be XnY, ie normal. Girls will all be carriers, XnXh as they will all get the affected X from dad.

It is unlikely that a carrier girl will be severely affected, but this is not the same as being not affected.

For a girl to have full blown haemophilia, the only way this can happen is if she has XhXh, this means she has to have a father who is affected and a mother who is a carrier. That combination results in a 1 in 4 chance of an affected girl. This is very rare though, usually because the partners of affected men get tested too.

Does that make the genetics a bit clearer?

Crystal. Now i just need to learn how to spell it!

LOL at Bubbaluv

I think the real question is whether the forthcoming DC will inherit Minky's rude chromosome

And I don't punch

My dd has haemophillia b (otherwise called factor 9 deficiency or christmas disease.
Her father,uncles, cousins etc were all "bleeders" (sorry that's a horrible way to put it)
All the females were regarded as carriers at the worst.
Many of them including my dd have been found to have a blood count that was very low or low enough to have to take precautions during surgery etc.

dd has had to have many factor 9 transfusions as she has a completely unrelated illness which requires much surgery.
It is important to know if girls are carriers with a low clotting factor themselves for things like injections etc. They should not be given intramuscular injections etc (we found this out with our dd)
Her clotting level is 11%
In the early nineties the doctors told me there was no need to check her levels as she would only be a carrier.

My dd's grandmother has suffered dreadful arthritis since her teens and this has been a direct result of her having bleeds into joints when she was a gymnast.....they really didn't know about the heamophillia

On a positive note...It changes nothing on a day to day level
NO WRAPPING UP IN COTTON WOOL

You are being very hard on Minky. Bubbaluv was exceptionally rude on this thread, she started by patronisingly assuming that Minky didn't know what she was talking about even though Minky's first post stated that her family was under the care of a haemophilia centre. She then carried on insisting that her information gleaned from the internet trumped what Minky had been told by a leading specialist centre and finished up by accusing her of being a troll.
I would have been furious too and I'm not even pregnant.

the amount of clotting factor you have in your blood dictates whether you are mildly affected or not
so my dd has 11% of the normal clotting agent (so is classed as mild)
Her uncle has 1% (is classed as severe) and lives with extreme pain due to all the bleeds he's had.
My dd has required emergency unplanned factor 9 injections after shutting her hand in a door at school and the thumb joint became really inflamed due to a bleed.
She has also had to be given it after I forgot to remind the nurse befor she gave dd an injection in the leg. Hel upper leg blew up like a big hot balloon

Sorry Minky I forgot to answer you op
I always find the centre staff (oxford) really helful.
Re your birth,I wouldn't do anything differently at all

good luck to you and yours x

LadyGlen, I think we're all over that now!
It's very easy at the end of the thread (once you know the whole story) to make comment.

Hi MinkyBorage, my grandfather was a haemophiliac and my mother a carrier. There was a possibility that I too could be a carrier, so we decided to find out with our first child. Turned out to be a girl so that was OK. I have since been gene tested and am not a carrier, so having my son next was fine.

I have always understood that girls cannot get haemophilia and that it is only a risk for boy. Girls carry, boys get it.

I suppose it depend on the facilities you are offered for delivery as to whether you find out the sex. We would have had to travel into Central London to deliver which isn't something we wanted to do when our local hospital was just 5 mins down the road, so we decided to find out the sex.

Hope this helps...

I don't quite understand the basis of the question either, but think if it's an issue, doctors should put on your record that forceps shouldn't be used in your delivery. You then don't need to establish whether baby is a boy or girl. Hopefully you'll have an easy delivery as before anyway.