Is this horrible disease going to affect my children?
by BridgetSeritt
I’m writing this article as my oldest child is going through the disgnosis process for fibromyalgia. Since my children were born, not a day has gone by where I don’t deeply dread them telling me “Mommy, my knees are on fire!” We all worry about our children and want the very best, healthiest lives the world has to offer. When something comes up to question our children’s vitality, as parents, we feel unmeasurable guilt and responsibility for the situation. So I started wondering exactly how herediary RA and other autoimmunes are.
Without any other research, I looked up my family line. I was adopted and didn’t know my medical history until I was 25 years old. When I made contact with my biological parents, they had not heard of any other related illnesses in the family. Well fastforward 11 years. Last year, 2 of my biological Father’s siblings tested positive for Lupus – one with symptoms. So from this small snapshot, it seems that autoimmunes are herediary, but just not in a linear fashion! To compound that, my ex-husbands line has a history of autoimmunes with his great grandmother having RA and his father having Multiple Sclerosis. Clearly there is a distinct family lineage of various autoimmunes in my family. The odds seems so unfairly stacked against my children.
So with this first glance being the case, it seems almost cruel to have children and subject them to the possibility of a lifetime of pain. Only seeing this small snippet makes me feel an almost crushing guilt that I even had children. However, my children have been my life. They are the most amazing children I could ever ask for and would not do things different. With that, knowing RA and autoimmunes don’t always follow the same pattern, I decided to look up some statistics on the genetic predisposition for these things. The stats are suprisingly positive. So if you are considering having children, please consider these!
According to a website called, Pediatric Rheumatologist; “While it is very unusual to see two cases in the same family, some genes seem to increase the chance of developing JRA. However, arthritis is almost never passed from a parent to a child. Therefore, the chance of your child passing the illness on to his or her children is extremely rare.” What this means is we can have children without the overwhelming grief associated with passing on a hideous illness. Chances are, our children will have normal, healthy lives! While there is always a chance that our children can get something, the chances of us passing on an autoimmune are not any greater. Not convinced yet?
The American College of Rheumatology says this, “Rheumatological diseases are caused by the interplay of multiple genes and environmental factors. In reality, there are approximately 25,000 genes, all varying from person to person, all influencing human traits like appearance, personality and susceptibility to different diseases. Mutations, which are usually harmful changes in the genes, or even mild and usually harmless variations in genes, can result in diseases in offspring.” In a nutshell, mutations are more likely the culprit when deciding susceptibility. This is why prenatal care, exceptionally nutritious prenatal diet, and prenatal exercise are extremely important while pregnant. This is the beginning foundation we provide our children, so make it count.
So let us end this with a few more statistics. The Centers for Disease control “estimate 50 million adults in the United States reported being told by a doctor that they have some form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia.” Gout when caught early is easily controled with diet, exercise and medication. As far as Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis goes “an estimated 294,000 children under age 18 have some form of arthritis or rheumatic condition; this represents approximately 1 in every 250 children in the U.S.”
What these statistics tell us about our children is:
-Make sure we don’t fall prey to false advertisement and convenience. Be sure to feed your children a varied diet of whole, nutritious foods. Yes all their friends are eating fast food, but if all their friends were licking cows, would you let your child do so? Our children get approximately 1/4 of their vegetables in the form of french fries. We put seat belts on them in cars to protect them, we make our children brush their teeth, we send them to school for a better future – why poison them with something WE KNOW is bad for them. I know I don’t want to be responsible for my children having heart attacks – so why feed them foods that promote illness.
– Make sure your children exercise. If children are not active, their bodies are prone to illness. Our bodies are made to move. No matter how bad we hurt, we know when we stop moving – we will lose the use of those muscles/parts. When the fluids in our body stop moving, they become infected. Why keep our kids sedentary? Monitoring our children’s exercise is never easy and often it’s just easier on US to let them do what they want, play video games and park them infront of some technology. All of those things have their places, but not promoting exercise can be deadly to our children. Maybe not now, maybe not when they are 20 – but I can assure you from 30 on, their bodies will not work as well if they have not had a lifetime of movement.
-Be an example for your child. If you are eating double whoppers everyday, your child will too. You are his/her biggest teacher and hero. Often what a parent tells their child is truth set in stone to them. Make sure you promote and live a healthy lifestyle. Doing so with an autoimmune is difficult, inconvenient, and often never seems to help. Realistically it does. It can even prevent those environmental factors from turning on any gene susceptability to an autoimmune in your child. Essentially it can save their live.
I think it’s worth it! Don’t you?
