Risk factors

• Family history muscular dystrophy (parents, siblings, etc.).

• Child already carrying a muscular dystrophy which makes fear a similar risk for the other children to come.

Prevention

If a person is a carrier of gene of the disease, there is no way to prevent the onset of symptoms. Couples with a family history of the disease (muscular dystrophy in the family or birth of a first affected child) can consult a genetic counselor (geneticist or specialist in prenatal diagnosis) in order to know the risk of giving birth to a sick child. Today, screening tests make it possible to detect the disease, before birth or even before the implantation of the embryo in the uterus (prenatal or preimplantation diagnosis). They also make it possible to know if it is a genetic accident in the chromosomes of the child, when the parents are not carriers of the gene (the risk for an unborn child is then normal).