When I was 20 weeks pregnant, my doctor recommended an amniocentesis so we could find out what was causing concerns during my pregnancy. They took amniotic fluid for testing, and that's when my husband and I learned our daughter had a rare genetic disorder called Fanconi anemia (FA). We found out that we were both carriers, something we had never known.
Fanconi Anemia Explained
What Is FA?
FA is a genetic disease caused by mutations in any of the known 23 genes (including genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2) that play a role in the FA DNA repair pathway. FA is considered a cancer-predisposition or cancer-susceptibility disease. Decades of research have revealed that faulty DNA repair causes FA, and individuals with FA are much more likely to develop cancer at a young age.