Reply to Husband has Sickle Cell gene and didn't tell me

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a carrier of the trait, as was my mom.  My mom told me I was negative so I was totally surprised when I came up positive during my pregnancy labs.  This is not a big deal and not worth you getting an amniocentesis over.  Your child has a 50 percent chance of being a carrier.  One of my kids is, the other isn't.  We need to stay well hydrated and listen to our bodies, that is all.  Please calm down.  And not only black people can have it.  This is misinformation.[/quote] Not everyone that has sickle cell trait is black, but everyone that has sickle cell trait has a black ancestor. They traced the origin of the gene back to one child that lived in Africa 7,300 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43373247

https://www.the-independent.com/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hidden-black-ancestry-linked-to-rise-in-sickle-cell-blood-disorder-738008.html[/quote]
This is true. This is how there are people that physically appear to be fully European that have sickle cell trait or disease. The African ancestry decreases with each generation, but the sickle cell allele can keep getting passed down. The ancestry won't always show up on an ancestry DNA test either because those tests only go back 6-8 generations. I was taught that we are to screen every patient regardless of what they self-report their background as or what they physically appear to be for this exact reason. Not every medical professional is aware of this or follows this protocol though.[/quote]
This, this, this. I tested positive for sickle cell trait (not the disease). I took an ancestry test, and it said 2.7% Sub-Saharan African. I look fully European (obviously).[/quote]
Theoretically, this can and does happen with traits from any type of ancestry. Here's a hypothetical scenario. Imagine an East Asian and a European person have a child together. The Asian parent has brown eyes (2 alleles for brown eyes - homozygous). The White/European parent has blue eyes (2 alleles for blue eyes - homozygous). Their child together will automatically have one allele for brown eyes and one allele for blue eyes (heterozygous). Imagine that biracial child marries a fully East Asian person who has brown eyes. Their child(ren) will be roughly 75% Asian but could carry one allele for blue eyes (if it gets passed down from the biracial parent). If the future generations continue to marry fully Asian people, the allele for blue eyes could continue to get passed down even when the European ancestry has become such a small percentage. Eventually you will end up with a fully Asian person that carries the gene for blue eyes (as long as that allele continues to be inherited). This is how new traits and genes are introduced into populations that they didn't originate in.

Genetics are way more intricate than the average person thinks. Our DNA comes from many generations of people that existed prior to us and our parents AKA ancestors. A "genetic throwback" is really just a recessive trait that has been masked for generations (by a dominant trait) but suddenly appears again when two people who unknowingly both carry that recessive allele have a child together.[/quote]

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