Sickle cell status disclosure: Reproductive health part 4

The politics of the sickle cell gene and relationship is one of the major challenges in sickle cell.

Almost every person who is battling sickle cell disease will tell you that they would not even want their enemy to experience the sickle cell pain. Every one would not want to bring to this world a child who will be in pain all their lives, the guilt that will haunt you for all your life.

The first step to prevent the birth of a child with sickle cell is knowing your genotype and that of your partner. You can only know when you disclose the status to your partner.

Adult men and women with sickle cell are confronted with the challenge of communicating their status to partners and deciding with their partners what their plans will be in advance of pregnancy.

You don't need to have the conversation too late for the sake of openness in the relationship or too early to avoid presumption of long term commitment early in the relationship. You need to repeat this type of communication as partners change throughout the child bearing years. Once partners have communicated about their sickle cell disease or trait status, the first decision maybe whether to have a baby a decision that may be influenced by the social network.

If a man or woman with sickle cell disease decide to have a baby and want to be certain that the baby does not have sickle cell disease a partner must have neither sickle cell disease or sickle cell trait or be aware of the advances in assisted reproductive technology and prenatal testing that are available to support this decision.

The woman also need to be fully aware of the potential physical consequences to herself during pregnancy.
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