CF Awareness Post Question Day 12

Can you have children and have CF?

Yes and no.  Women can have a harder time getting pregnant because of extra mucus around their cervix.  Most CF men are missing their vas deferens which is what delivers the sperm.  They can have children but usually not the natural way (I know a couple of CF men who fathered children naturally so some can).  I have many CF women friends on here who have had successful births via natural and IVF.  I also know many who have adopted instead.  Having children when you yourself have CF can lead to the child having CF as well.  Your partner needs to be screened for CF to be sure s/he is not a carrier.  Even then, there is a small chance that the baby will have CF.  The panel covers the most common types of CF and sometimes a partner may have a rare mutation and pass it on to the baby, along with yours, resulting in a CF baby.  If a CFer has a baby using their sperm or egg, their baby WILL BE a carrier, meaning they will have one mutated CF gene.  If the partner supplying the other half is a carrier there is a 50% chance the baby will have CF.  CF is a recessive genetic disease meaning that there needs to be TWO mutated CF genes in order to have CF.