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Sickle Cell Paper

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Sickle Cell Disease (Anemia) Child and Adolescent Development (PSC 1246A) Sickle Cell Disease, commonly referred to as Sickle Cell Anemia, is a blood disease which red blood cells form an abnormal sickle or crescent shape. Red blood cells carry oxygen to the body and are normally shaped like a disc. This disease is genetically inherited from both parents. If you inherit the sickle cell gene from only one parent, you will have sickle cell trait. People with sickle cell trait do not have the symptoms of sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell disease is much more common in people of African and Mediterranean descent. It is also seen in people from South and Central America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. Sickle cell …show more content…

People with the sickle cell trait can never get the disease. They don’t have any of the symptoms except anemia which is usually treated with vitamins with extra iron. On a personal note, I have the Sickle Cell trait. I have been known all my life about the trait and the disease. I inherited the trait from my mother’s side of the family. My father’s side does not carry the trait. My mother’s family is also from the West Indies, and my father’s family is not. When I married my first husband, (whom I remarried a few months ago after twenty years), I realized that that he that had the sickle cell trait as well as myself. We tried and did not have any children. Twenty years later, we have decided to have a child. With the advancements in science, we discovered that with in vitro fertilization, we can take my eggs and his sperm and fertilize them and since every one in four has a 25% chance of having the disease, we will take the one healthy egg and produce a healthy child and discard the three infected with the genetic trait. It is an expensive, yet healthy choice for our child to live a normal, healthy, happy life disease free. In conclusion, genetics make us who we are. If not for the different diseases, and other traits we receive from our parents, and their parents and many generations before,

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