Crohns and passing it to your children?

You may or may not pass on CD that is true...I've never heard that if you do have CD your children have a higher chance of developing some kind of auto immune disease though...I'm a member of the CCFC and haven't read any research on that...doubt that it's written in stone either...nowadays more than ever it seems like everyone's got some health issue or another to deal with.

I don;t know the answer. Yesterday, my twenty year old told my wife that he was having trouble with acid reflux. I didn't want to say anything out loudbut I wondered if he could have Crohn's Disease. It can be hereditary.

I have three kids all without CD. If I knew then, what I know now I would have made the following adjustments.
I would have been more careful with antibiotics. I think they could be a contributor.
I would have been more careful with sugar. Used organic honey instead.
I would have included more organic food overall.
I would have introduced and used SCD yogurt as part of the diet.

I am not saying that this would prevent but I can not see how it would hurt and I know it would make them even healthier than they are now (and they are great now, thank god).
Cheers David

Well I am the only one with IBD in my family on both sides
But on my father side we have a higher than average number of Auto immune diseases

My dad has it and his 3 siblings from two different dads, my grandma had it and her brothers.
So I would take that into account also.

no known family history and no other family member with it

I read the article in the link....I can guarentee you that I was not raised in a spick and span house, plus gardened, and had cats and dogs.  I believe we all we exposed to enough virus and bacteria.  It seems like 10 doctors will have 10 different opinions on heredity and what causes the autoimune spectrum of diseases.  What I do know from the pediatric rhumatoid doctors we have seen for my son, everyone of them agreed that having an autoimune disease like chron's disease made any of my children have a higher than normal risk for other autoimune diseases such as rhuematiod arthritis. My son is the first person in many generations to have JRA.  However on both sides of my family I have relatives with colon disorders, ranging including UC, chron's, Celiac, IBS, Lactose intolerance)  here is an article that I recieved recently from science daily. "Scientists have shown that a specific virus can interact with a mutation in the host's genes to trigger disease. The observation may help explain why many people with disease risk genes do not actually develop disease. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St...  http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/192906.php "

Yeah Count Tuscany it's called living life even with having an autoimmune disease....right or wrong it's not fair to judge people...some of us had kids before we even became sick or even knew what IBD was. Some IBDers are very mild cases and are hoping that if their future children do happen to get an IBD that there's too will be on the mild side, some pregnancy's are unplanned and if you're against abortion then IBD or not, you'll likely not have an abortion, there's many scenarios I would imagine since the world is not simply black and white...if only we all had a crystal ball eh.

Before we had our son, (and before I knew I had crohn's), we scrutinized our family for diseases our future child might be prone to as part of the decision, because my husband likes to plan everything down to the gnat's ass, and we didn't want to bring a child into the world who might suffer. Then we find out, when our son was born early, that he has some rare recessive gene disease that will likely make him suffer at sometime in the future and maybe even die early. This scares me deeply and torments me on an almost daily basis. A greater tragedy would have been if we knew this in advance. We wouldn't have brought him into the world and that would have been a great loss--he's a funny, decent and joyful person who will make the world a better place. Who is to say if what the right decision is if you know you may pass on a disease, but I am so grateful, at least at this point, that we didn't know our son would have a disease before we made the decision to have a child.

The other thing is I have crohn's and would still choose to be here, and that is probably how most of us feel.

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=38&m=2112145&p=2

Look, if you don't want to have children, that's absolutely fine and dandy. But you have absolutely no grounds on which to judge other people for doing so, absolutely none. There are healthy people who end up depressed, suicidal, and broke or addicted in their adulthood life. Good health or ill heath is no guarantee of happiness or success in this world!

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 2/8/2013 7:39:02 AM (GMT-7)

Yes, both sides of the issue, please! : ) Hopefully in the future there will be a cure for these nasty diseases, as well as a way to avoid passing on undesirable genes that cause disease.

I have two boys: 32 and 27 - neither one has crohns. At one point the younger one was having some gastro issues and demanded to have a colonoscopy done. So it would seem that should any symptoms come up for these two they won't mess around for 3 years trying to get a diagnosis like their mother did - which means they'll be on the right meds much sooner.

When I was first diagnosed at the age of 25, my doctor told me that the worst thing I could do was let this disease dictate how I live my life. Some days I can't take that advise but most of the time I can.

Count Tuscany, it makes me chuckle that you think future generations will think differently...times change, people don't. You must have no idea what it's like for a woman that yearns to have kids, who's clock starts to tick and all they can think about is having a baby...all I ever wanted was kids and to stay home and raise them...little did I know that I'd end up having no choice but to "stay home" even now that they're full grown, my life revolves a lot around my CD, but it's not my "fault" since I can't help that I got sick with it and not to mention...at the time I found out I had it, first thing I asked my GI was if it was hereditary (never even hearing the word crohn's until I was DX with it) and he told back then (1991) that they weren't sure, not enough research or information about CD but that I already have one beautiful child and if I wanted more I shouldn't necessarily let this DX of CD alter that.

The reason that was my GI's explanation to me is the same reason that other's here have mentioned, we don't always know what we're going to end up with in life or what we might pass on to our children and such.

I didn't find your responses as another perspective, I read it for what it was, condemning people with IBD for choosing to have kids and no regard or realization on your part that many of us IBDers didn't even get sick until we were either pregnant for the first time or after we already had our first child. Like many of us didn't feel guilt after we learned that we had a disease with no cure and it could possibly be hereditary, please, seems like you don't know well enough that in a nutshell, crap happens, that's life.

Maybe we shouldn't have kids, not because we have IBD but because they could become disabled in an accident that's not their fault and hey, how selfish cuz now they'll have to be looked after forever and will be living is constant pain and suffering due to their injuries....what a sad way to view life.

Wanted to resurrect this older thread and see if there any other perspectives out there, or stories from newer members, particularly with my situation...

I'm visiting from the UC forum. i've had pretty active disease for 10 years and am now in the remission on Entyvio. My boyfriend has Crohn's, and has been on Remicade for years. We're coming to a crossroads in our relationship as it's serious and we've been together for more than a few years. My gut (pun not intended) is that since we both have IBD and both are on biologics for the foreseeable future, having biological children together is just not an option. There are many other paths to parenthood we can take, of course, and we'll explore them all. It's just a lot to process and accept.

Does anyone have a partner with IBD who has grappled with this issue, too?