Genetics
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What are the adverse effects of using teratogens during pregnancy?
Teratogens are chemicals, drugs, and sometimes infections that are capable of causing abnormality in the development of a fetus. The most common teratogens are; radiation, toxic chemicals, alcohol, viruses, smoking, and some specific drug prescriptions. There are numerous potential teratogens but it turns out that very few of them are known to cause teratogenic effects. The impacts can lead to a baby being delivered with defects. It has been documented that about 5 percent of births defects are stimulated by exposure to teratogens (Georgieff et al., 2018). Teratogens are dynamic and they could have effects ranging from mild to adverse and they tend to be very risky and dangerous during the early months of pregnancies and with prolonged or excessive exposure. Alcohol for instance happens to be among the key teratogens. It passes from the bloodstream of a pregnant woman very quickly to the blood of the baby via the placenta and the umbilical cord.
The fetus has the same blood teratogen level that the mother has when she ingests but has no equal ability to break it down the teratogens like alcohol. It is not easy to recognize whether a given chemical or drug could cause congenital issues. This is because most women happen to take drugs while pregnant. One recognized exception is thalidomide, a drug used to help in morning sickness, that was found back in the 1960s to be a cause of partial or sometimes the total absence of legs and arms in babies. More regularly children that are born of mothers who take alcohol in excess during pregnancy are likely to develop problems with memory, thinking, and behavioral problems. Those abnormalities that are brought about by drinking alcohol during pregnancy are called fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
If a woman drinks or uses drugs during her pregnancy and it harms her growing fetus, do you think she should be held legally responsible for her actions? Why or why not?
Yes. As an advocate for children’s welfare, I think women who drink or use substances should be held legally responsible when the babies develop abnormality. This is because they are directly responsible for the abnormalities due to their behavior during pregnancy. A woman’s drinking or substance abuse however may involve sophisticated factors that need to be addressed in a good build way (Georgieff et al., 2018). Punishing women fail to form part of the solution to addiction and in turn undermine the well-being and health of children and their mothers. It is also notable that courts tend to reject attempts of prosecuting such women under the present criminal laws for their behavior while pregnant that is a risk of harming the fetus. Thus the fetal rights theory tends to threaten women’s rights and children’s best interests. In my opinion, these women should nevertheless be held accountable.
Select a disease that exhibits pleiotropy or incomplete penetrance. How does the disease exhibit these characteristics? Can the severity of the disease be affected by families having these traits? If so, how? If not, why not?
I choose sickle cell anemia. People with this disease tend to lack oxygen supply in their tissues and cells in their bodies. This is due to a decrease in hemoglobin, red blood cell generation, and decreased total amounts of red blood cells. The disease can cause heart issues like heart failure and sometimes death. The families having these traits due to the heterogeneity nature of the disease can affect the severity of the disease.
Using Mendel’s laws, describe the phenotypic and genotypic ratios for the F2 generation if pea plants with restricted yellow pods are crossed with true-breeding inflated green pods in the original cross and then the F1 generation is crossed.
Mendel’s law is the dominance law, the segregation law, and the independent assortment law (Gavon, 2016). The three laws make up the primary principle of Mendelian genetics. Genotype tends to be the genes in the DNA of the pea plant. Three possible genotypes are, TT(homozygous pure), Tt (heterozygous hybrid), and tt(homozygous pure). Phenotype is the physical trait showing up in the pea plant.
Reference
Gayon, J. (2016). From Mendel to epigenetics: History of genetics. Comptes rendus biologies, 339(7-8), 225-230.
Georgieff, M. K., Tran, P. V., & Carlson, E. S. (2018). Atypical fetal development: Fetal alcohol syndrome, nutritional deprivation, teratogens, and risk for neurodevelopmental disorders and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 30(3), 1063-1086.