Hi!!! my husband is type 1 since he was 8 years old! now he is 34 and we are planning to have a baby next year. is there any chance that our baby could has diabetes too?? Any advise for us?? Thank you…
There is always a chance. But there is also always a chance for two people who are NOT diabetic to have diabetic offspring.
Neither of my parents had diabetes, and look how that turned out for me.
Hopefully you won’t worry about the odds, but if you want to look at them, here they are:
The risk for a child of a parent with type 1 diabetes is lower if it is the mother — rather than the father — who has diabetes. “If the father has it, the risk is about 1 in 10 (10 percent) that his child will develop type 1 diabetes — the same as the risk to a sibling of an affected child,” Dr. Warram says. On the other hand, if the mother has type 1 diabetes and is age 25 or younger when the child is born, the risk is reduced to 1 in 25 (4 percent) and if the mother is over age 25, the risk drops to 1 in 100 — virtually the same as the average American.
2 Likes
Thank you Eddie… I hope we could have a healthy baby!
2 Likes
I have feared the very same thing about my two children. From what I read, the probability that a child of a T1D will have T1D, is 30% higher than that of a child of a non-diabetic parent. While 30% higher sounds high, when you consider how UNcommon T1D is, the chances of your children having T1D is still quite remote.
Don’t worry … enjoy your family !!
3 Likes
I am female and I have had Type 1 since 1962. I have 3 healthy children ages 43, 42 and 35. it can happen😊
2 Likes
thank you Michael!!
Wow Gail!! thank you! very inspiring! 
I am a T1 (17) and I have two sons 38 and 36 (neither diabetes) and 3 grandchildren no T1 so far.
Now so you know it can happen, I am the child of a T1. In short, you cannot know and I hope you look at the remarkable progress and feel good about a choice to have a family.
3 Likes
Thank you for sharing! is encouraging read your experience 
My husband is T1 (37), and none of our 3 children have diabetes. My eldest (13) has had some high blood sugar episodes and we’ve been told to watch her although all her bloods have come back ok so far (no antibodies etc).
You never know what the chances are. But I know with my husband he is grateful for his life so we would hope our children would be too even if they got it
It tends to skip a generation, so your kids normal, grandchildren diabetic. But, by then it will be cured.
I’ve never seen that before. Would be interesting to read more about it if so and especially what the causal mechanism is (or is hypothesized to be).
Could you please point to some references?
Kateymumma - I’m in a similar position. I am type 1 and so is my dad and my daughter (20 months) has had some high blood sugar episodes. Can I ask how high you’ve found your daughter’s sugars?
It is a major worry to me and my daughter isn’t old enough for trialnet yet. I understand she could have GAD testing but it can be inconclusive.
I wondered about the chances of it passing on when it is in two generations already. I believe it to be higher but I’m not really sure.
@Dessito, you have never heard that? I have heard that my whole life. Turns out, when I searched, its a bit more complicated than that. That’s probably not the best way of describing what happens. That might be kinda ‘old wives tale-ish’ Here is a better source of statistics from Joslin…
"Type 1 Diabetes Odds
Just who is at risk for developing type 1 diabetes? Here’s a sampling of what Dr. Warram, a Lecturer in Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, said is known:
If an immediate relative (parent, brother, sister, son or daughter) has type 1 diabetes, one’s risk of developing type 1 diabetes is 10 to 20 times the risk of the general population; your risk can go from 1 in 100 to roughly 1 in 10 or possibly higher, depending on which family member has the diabetes and when they developed it.
If one child in a family has type 1 diabetes, their siblings have about a 1 in 10 risk of developing it by age 50.
The risk for a child of a parent with type 1 diabetes is lower if it is the mother — rather than the father — who has diabetes. “If the father has it, the risk is about 1 in 10 (10 percent) that his child will develop type 1 diabetes — the same as the risk to a sibling of an affected child,” Dr. Warram says. On the other hand, if the mother has type 1 diabetes and is age 25 or younger when the child is born, the risk is reduced to 1 in 25 (4 percent) and if the mother is over age 25, the risk drops to 1 in 100 — virtually the same as the average American.
If one of the parents developed type 1 diabetes before age 11, their child’s risk of developing type 1 diabetes is somewhat higher than these figures and lower if the parent was diagnosed after their 11th birthday.
About 1 in 7 people with type 1 has a condition known as type 2 polyglandular autoimmune syndrome. In addition to type 1 diabetes, these people have thyroid disease, malfunctioning adrenal glands and sometimes other immune disorders. For those with this syndrome, the child’s risk of having the syndrome, including type 1 diabetes, is 1 in 2, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA)."
Thanks – I have been looking at the hereditary statistics myself (about to become a T1D mom myself, so you can understand :
), but had never encountered the “skipping a generation” part. In any case, maybe someone else on the thread or in the future will have some leads if this is a commonly told tale.
1 Like
So, they discuss it all over, but its a wives tale. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I have literally heard it so many times from so many different people throughout my life that I cannot guarantee that I wont say it again, LOL.
1 Like
My great grandmother had it, my grandfather, my dad and his sister and now my brother and I. Still waiting for it to skip a generation!
2 Likes