Will my mother's myopia be passed on to her children? Will my mother's myopia be passed on to her children?

Will myopia be inherited by the mother? Today, I will tell you about myopia. Parents hope that their babies can be healthy and beautiful, so is myopia definitely inherited? I will tell you about myopia in detail.

Will myopia be passed down to my children if I'm my mom?

Parents carry myopia genes only when they pass them on to their children

Myopia is a relatively common refractive condition. In daily life, we often see two types of myopia, one is simple myopia and the other is high myopia. These two are completely different situations.

Simple myopia, also known as common myopia, refers to low and moderate myopia below 600 degrees, which is extremely common. It is generally physiological, and there is currently no clear evidence that common myopia is hereditary.

High myopia refers to myopia with high refractive power, significantly elongated eye axis, and atrophy and degeneration of fundus. It is divided into pathological and physiological types. Pathological high myopia has genetic factors and is hereditary.

According to the results of population genetic surveys, high myopia is an autosomal recessive inheritance. If both spouses have high myopia, their children usually develop the disease; if one spouse has high myopia and the other is normal, 10%-15% of their children will develop the disease; if one spouse has high myopia and the other is a myopia gene carrier with normal phenotype, the probability of their children developing high myopia is 50%; if both spouses are myopia gene carriers but have normal vision, the probability of their children developing high myopia is 25%.

My mother is nearsighted, will it be hereditary?

Pregnant women with high myopia, how to reduce the possibility of inheritance?

Expectant mothers can still use various methods to minimize the impact of genetics on their babies:

a. Get the rubella vaccine in advance - Rubella virus infection in early pregnancy may directly affect the development of the fetus' eyes and lead to congenital cataracts.

b. Sunbathing - Appropriate outdoor exercise and sunbathing are beneficial to the absorption of calcium and are also good for the development of fetal visual cells and cornea.

c. Make sure to take in enough vitamins to help your baby’s eye development and prevent cataracts.

d. Pregnant mothers should use eye drops and ointments with caution to prevent fetal malformations.

What is the cause of myopia?

Myopia is the result of both genetics and environment.

The results of the eye disease survey show that the incidence of myopia in family members with a family history of myopia is higher than that in those without a family history of myopia, indicating that the onset of myopia is related to heredity. However, the occurrence of myopia is also affected by acquired environmental factors. Therefore, myopia is a multi-gene inheritance, that is, the patient has multiple pathogenic genes, but there are also environmental factors. This is a phenomenon that is easy to see in the occurrence of simple myopia.

Environmental factors include poor lighting and bad reading and working habits. For example, long periods of reading and close work keep the eye's accommodative muscles in a state of constant tension and contraction, which weakens the accommodative ability and causes myopia.

However, under the same conditions, not all people develop myopia, and some myopic patients do not do close work, and some even seldom read books and newspapers. It can be seen that myopia is the result of the combined effects of heredity and environment.

High myopia is an autosomal recessive genetic disease, which means that the disease will only occur if both of the genes related to myopia are pathogenic genes. If only one of the genes is pathogenic and the other is normal, the disease will not occur and the patient will only be a carrier of the pathogenic gene.

For example, neither parent is nearsighted, but they are both carriers of high myopia genes. They themselves do not show myopia, but their disease-causing genes are passed on to their children, making the children have two myopia genes, thus making the children myopic.