What are chances of kids developing diabetes if father has type1?

I read someone its 6-8% , is there way to lower it even more somehow , i am worried about getting married and having kids , everytime my family asks me when ur planning to get married i change question or get into argument with them on that i dunno what do help???

Hallo Raj,
The best answer will come from people here who had type1 diabetes as children,got married and have children and grandchildren.Life is about making choices not to miss living normal life .Wish you happiness always.

Hello Raj:

Well, it is your Life and your decision, not your Family’s. If you feel really uncomfortable about having Children and possibly passing the Diabetes on to them, then that is your right to decide not to have Children.

Personally I think it is the “Luck of the draw”. We’ve seen Men with Diabetes who have Diabetic Children. Those Kids are just as loved and wanted. We have also seen many more Diabetic Men who’s Children do not have Diabetes(touch wood).

My youngest Brother’s(Wife) had 3 Kids. None of them so far have Diabetes(touch wood).

I’m sorry, but I’ve never yet heard of anything that lessens the percentage that you have mentioned. I think though, if you meet the Right Woman, it won’t matter much to you any more. =) Good Luck with your decision.

hy thx , guys for ur replies , i guess its my decision , well my life has been very tensed for last 9 yrs anything but good so even if there is less chance like 6-8% risk i cant blame myself for me being pessimistic. As much as i want to get married and have kids and that was somethin that i was looking forward to i feel gods robbed me of that big happiness as well.so i hope everythin works out well but then again i cant make up my mind , There are so many times i dont approach girl or avoid girls bcoz of this reason only.

Hi Raj,
Don’t let diabetes hold you back. You can have a normal life, you can get married and have kids. I understand the fear of passing it on, but you are living with it and you can help your child if that were to happen. Don’t stop living…LIVE!

thx ppl

I agree with Terrie8…

Having diabetes I’m sure increases the chance of passing it on and I don’t know of anything that can be done to decrease the odds… There are many of us who have NO history of diabetes in our family. I have 2 autoimmunes (thyroid & diabetes) with no history of either…Perhaps my parents just passed on an unknown genetic defect… I was diagnosed with T1 at 38, seven years after having my last child. Will they develop diabetes, I don’t know. However, I think if either of them do, they will be well educated and able to handle it. Life is a crap shoot; we cannot predict the out come and there are no guarantees. Perfect health does not assure happiness. Honestly as a parent and a diabetic, I worry more about the day I give my kids the keys to the car…or the day they get in a car with another teen driver.

Perhaps you should have an honest discussion with your parents. If they understand your concerns and fears maybe they will be able to respect your decision and stop asking. It truly is a personal decision and no one can make it for you.

This song “It’s the only one you’ve got” by 3Doors Down always inspires me…

Good Luck Raj!
8482-ArtistTrack6.mp3 (4.05 MB)

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thx needed that , i guess what makes my decision more tougher is whenever as kid or even adult i used to play those games or anythin in which either u win r loose sort of situation i wasnt that good at it and it looks like a yes r no sort of sceanrio in my case too so that also worries me but i guess i would have to make decision when time comes i will see what i will do , dont wanna worry abt it right nw but thx for ur replies guys
Cheers

Raj,

I will tell you what my hubby’s dr told him when he was worried about passing the d on to our oldest daughter, the other one is fine, any way remember i’m the diabetic here not him, his mom was a Type 2. In most reasearch theve found that it comes through the mother’s side. Ok his mom was a Type 2 I’m a Type 1 and my oldest girl is a Type 1 too with one 23 month old and one 3 1/2 month old so do what another member said don’t let your family make this desission for you if you feel right in having children go ahead!! To me my children would hopefully have a cure before they had to worry about this and to my daughter her girls may have the same hope.

I’m the only one in my whole family with t1, and I’ve had it 41 years. On my dad’s side, everyone lives to be over 90, and his grandmother was the first woman doctor in Virginia, so we would have known if someone had it. My mom’s side also pretty long-lived. None of my cousins or nephews have it or even their kids, just ME!

Joslin’s website lists the odds for getting type 1 (another page also addresses the odds for type 2). In general, while the odds are higher if a father has type 1 than if the mother does, there are factors such as the age of diagnosis for the parents which also play a role. Here’s what they report:

  • 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).

Caucasians (whites) have a higher risk of type 1 diabetes than any other race. Whether this is due to differences in environment or genes is unclear. Even among whites, most people who are susceptible do not develop diabetes.

There’s more, but the facts are clear. First, you cannot do anything do reduce the odds, so don’t sweat over that one! Second, even though many kids are at theoretical risk, most do not get it. The odds are pretty low, so that really isn’t much of a reason to decide against having children. There are other things that could happen, too, and you have no control over those things, so don’t feel pressured by family on this issue.

thx man needed it

Raj - I just noticed this thread and thought I’d jump in. I totally understand your thinking. I also am begining to understand the tru power of our thoughts. Did you ever notice when you really think thing will not work out …they don’t? On the converse I am sure you can recall times when you had sharp thoughts or intuitions of what would turn out positive and it did. All I can attest to is I have had type 1 diabetes since age 12. I am now age 47 and have a wife and healthy 13 year old son. I am a school counselor. These are all things I thought I would have…they were my dreams. My belief is learn to dream big and talk with God. I was always afraid to tell the women I dated about my diabetes but when I did it really never became a problem and if it had I figured they wern’t for me. Their are many fish in the sea as they say…have fun …go fishing! Good Luck and here is to your renewed confidence.

phil mate u have hit exactly what i think and how i think.There are times i wanna think positive and there are time i think negative.My family has lot of faith in god more than i do to be honest as i have been anythin but hell thru last 10 yrs of my life and lot of my docs believe tension is one of major cause of diabetes and naturally my thoughts have become more pessimistic.i think and hope now i wont have kids with diabetes(touch wood) so i think iwill get married and have kids.thx for tht

very true debb , its not that i dont want kids i want them very much. its just i cant see myself putting needles or prickein young ones , i mean god can be so cruel sometimes for kids to have to go thru this , i dunno how to explain how i feel.ya well lets start fishin again for mrs and take things one step at a time.
thx for tht

I have had diabetes since childhood. I have lived a great life and am a great adult (in my own humble opinion). Should my parents not have had me? What if they would have known that if they had a daughter, she would be diabetic? There’s no history of it in my family besides me, but still… There’s no way to know. I, for one, am glad I’m here!

While I understand that no one wants to be accused of being irresponsible and bringing children into the world who might develop a medical condition…there are other things to consider!

  1. You can’t know if your future hypothetical children will develop it. There’s no way to reduce the risks, so I don’t see the worrying about it. I have diabetes. What if I also have a latent genetic flaw that will give my child a congenital heart defect? I can’t spend my 20s worrying about that and refuse to live a luscious, full life. I should be without love and a relationship because I might have sick babies? My husband and I could always adopt, too. My mother-in-law was adopted and raised by a beautiful family and is not the poorer for it.

AND

  1. So what if they do develop Type 1. It’s certainly no death sentence. I know it would be hard to watch your children potentially suffer, but trust me, we can turn out just fine! There’s no way to change the risk factor, but there are ways to be in your best health as a diabetic and (a) serve as a wonderful example to your children for how they should care for themselves and (b) be at your best so that you are around to help care for them for a long, long time. If they do develop diabetes, they will want your support more than they will want you to kick yourself for their ever having been born.

Raj, you are going to be a great parent! Don’t deny yourself ANYTHING because of diabetes (except the occasional slice of cake…). I wish you the best of luck. Fight off your disapproving family and go build your own!

Raj- Sorry for the late reply. I just joined the group and this is a topic that I’ve thought about quite a bit. When I first got married, I had the same hesitations for the same reason. I really didn’t want to see my kids go through the same things I had to deal with as a T1 kid (although in retrospect, things turned out pretty well for me!) I now have 2 great kids, 7 and 4, neither of which have developed the disease. When my son was born we were approached at the hospital by someone involved with the TEDDY (The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young) study. Ironically, they had no idea I was T1 but were pretty excited to have my son as part of the study when they found out. I won’t go into detail, but they are a well-funded group looking into this very question as well as all of the other factors that may lead to the development of the disease. They have a great website at http://teddy.epi.usf.edu/. Check it out and give them a call. I’m sure they’d be happy to answer your questions. For what it’s worth, I’m glad we made the decision that we did. Good luck!

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Well I think it is just luck. I have it but not a single person in my family does. I also know this couple, they both have diabetes, and their child has yet to get it. She is also in her late twenties so they said it would be unlikely that she gets it now.
Yeah, it is just luck.

i ran across (and am trying to find again) a study on exactly this statistic, I submitted an inquiry because i have a soon to be seven year old boy, and I don’t want him to have to deal with this brazen condition. If I find this link I will post it here for you… i had it in my email archives
http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00097292?term=adult+type+1+diabetes&rank=15