Can I Have Baby if I Have ADPKD

PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) is a common hereditary and congenital disorder in the kidneys and it can be subdivided into ADPKD and ARPKD according to different hereditary mode. ARPKD is much rarer in clinic. Patients have symptoms in their childhood and some diseased children may even die within hours or days after birth. And here I will mainly talk about ADPKD (autosomal dominant PKD). It accounts for the majority of PKD cases and usually patients will develop symptoms at their 30s to 50s and the disease will progressively develop into end stage renal failure without effective and proper treatments and measures.

Can ADPKD patients have babies or not? And will the children inherit the disease and how much chance that they can have a healthy baby? This is the question that most young PKD patients concern. According to the hereditary mode of ADPKD, the children will inherit the disease with only one polycystic gene. That is to say, if one parent has the disease, then the child has 50% chance to inherit the disease, weather it is a baby boy or baby girl because the female and male have the same incidence to have ADPKD. If both parents have the disease and each carry one disease-inducing gene, then the child has 75% chance to have the disease.

That is to say, the parents have at least 25% to have a healthy baby. Therefore the gene examination is recommended to be taken to check weather the child has the abnormal gene or not.

Another issues concerning the mother’s health is be of equal importance. That is can PKD patients be pregnant and will giving birth to baby affect their illness condition and kidney functions?

Actually it is better that PKD patients should not give birth to babies because pregnancy will definitely affect their illness. But that is not to say they have no chance to have baby. Only if their kidney functions are normal and their blood pressure is controlled well. And during the pregnancy, regular examinations should be taken to monitor their illness progression and checking their kidney functions.