An article on this topic is available in this issue of AFP . Sickle cell disease is a blood disease that children inherit from their parents. The disease causes the red blood cells to make abnormal hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the part of blood that carries oxygen in the body. There are different kinds of sickle cell disease.
Some kinds are mild, but others cause serious illness.
To get sickle cell disease, a child has to inherit the sickle hemoglobin gene from one parent and a sickle gene or another abnormal hemoglobin gene from the other parent. People with one normal gene and one sickle gene are carriers of the abnormal gene. They have sickle cell trait, but they do not have sickle cell disease. If both parents have sickle cell trait, their child has a 25 percent chance of getting sickle cell disease. Sometimes one parent has sickle cell trait and the other parent has a gene for another kind of abnormal hemoglobin.