Rhesus Negative Factor

[pharmaT]

Lizzie, did the pathologist explain how, if your husband is Positive, his children get a negative gene from him?  Wouldn't it have come from yourself?


Dawn M

When it comes to features we inherit genetically we have a genotype and phenotype.  Genotype is what your genes are and phenotype is what is expressed. 

Rhesus negative gene is what is called recessive and rhesus positive is dominant.  This means that:
 genotpye - - would be Rhesus negative phenotype but genotype -+ would be rhesus positive phenotype. You inherit one chromosome from each parent so in this case the children inherited the -ve gene from their father.

[pinefamily]

Well explained, PharmaT.

[Neli]

I've been Rhesus neg all my life and never knew any of this. I found out when I gave blood as a student, many moons ago, they said my blood was rare and I should give as often as I could. Mum told me she had to have an injection because 'I had funny blood', when I was born but, I had no idea of the implications.
*wanders off to look for her flying saucer*

[LizzieW]

Neli - I think Rh Neg blood is less rare than people originally thought.  If you think of all the Rh neg people there were, most of whom had children who were also Rh Neg - in my case 5 children - and at least one of my children married someone with Rh Neg blood, so their 3 children all have Rh Neg, the numbers must be growing. 

[3sillydogs]

It is still fairly uncommon if some of the statistics are to be believed, they say that only about 7% of the world's population is negative.....

Most folk are RH+

http://www.rhnegativeregistry.com/welcome.html

[lisalucie]

I'm rhesus negative too...obviously descended from gods and Angels and all that 
Am actually expecting my second child too (13 years after my 1st...must be mad lol) and have to have that anti-d injection a bit later on.
My mom isn't rhesus (can't remember what she said she is, a or o??) so must have come from dads line.
Thank god for modern medicine! I remember reading that Queen Anne was probably this blood type too and that was why she had such a tragic child bearing history (18 infant deaths and numerous miscarriages if I remember right).
Lisa X

[alfietcs]

Hi everyone.

There have been some really helpful and interesting posts here, I have enjoyed reading them.

I've posted a link below that has some percentages of populations with R Neg blood. Some of the articles on this site need taking with a hefty pinch of salt, but I can see sense in this one:-
http://www.rhesusnegative.net/staynegative/topics/where-is-rh-negative-blood-most-frequent/

I would be very interesting, if at some point down the line, there could be established links proved through DNA and blood grouping etc. It does seem that according to the link that there are pockets of higher frequency R Neg blood which include Basque, Berber and Ireland/Scotland and Australia.

All fascinating stuff anyway.

[Gadget]

Very interesting.
Both my parents were A Rh neg and both were 'Celtic hybrids' - Scots/Welsh/some border English and  a touch of Irish in the 18C on both sides!. My sister and I were/are also A Rh neg 
During WW2, my Dad was asked to give blood very frequently as he was told he had useful blood!
I've later discovered that my late sister, niece and I also have Factor V Liden - a clotting factor.

Gadget

[Treetotal]

My Mum was Rhesus D Neg and the only problem she had was when my Brother was born...he had to have a blood change...she called him a "Blue Baby" 

Carol