MDTV on Pregnancy and Crohn's Disease IBD Inheritance What is the Likelihood of Passing Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis on to Children?
Women with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or IBD, often worry about whether they’ll pass Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis on to their offspring. While IBD tends to run in families, the inheritance does not occur in a true Mendelian fashion, meaning from a single gene on a chromosome. Instead what’s passed along is a trait, or a family of genes. Watch this MDTV Learning Module (4) to learn more.
By MDTV
For any parent with a chronic disease, it is only natural to worry about passing it on to children, and women with Inflammatory Bowel Disease are no exception. While, Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis do run in families, they are not passed along on a single gene. Instead, a trait, or group of genes, is passed on. This means that there is a lower probability of a child having IBD than if it was cause by a single gene from either the mother or father.
