Possibly genetic?

[salaneta]

My fiances mother has bi-polar and My partner had bi-polar when he was 15 and now Im wondering if my son (our first that im 29wks pregnant with) will have a greater chance of having it because both his father and paternal grandmother have had it???
I've tried asking my fiance if anyone else besides his mother has had it but he doesnt know, after all, I was the one that suggested both he and his mother could have bi-polar when they started going off the rails before they were diagnosed and was later proven right. So is it possible that any of our children could have it??

[hope1311]

I read on a BP website that if one parent suffers from BP, there is a 25 - 30% chance that the child can inherit BP as they say it is hereditary.  My mother suffers from BP and all of us 3 kids don't have it.

[arlandonbloom]

There is no exact answer to where these mood disorders come from. Being an aspiring psychology major, depending on what type of psychological theory you believe in, mood disorders come from brain abnormalities, genetics, or the environment. There is no exact answer to if your son will have it or not.

[thatquietgirl]

Having bipolar disorder myself, I usually check into this sort of thing.  The last I heard they suspect a genetic link as mental illnesses do seem to run in families, but that doesn't mean that your son will definitely have it.

For instance, my paternal great grandmother either had schizophrenia or bipolar type I (It's hard to determine since I never knew her and only have stories to go off of, and nothing was diagnosed since this was pre-psychiatric help being normal.).  My paternal grandfather was fairly normal.  I think his childhood and WWII kind of affected him a bit, but other than that, nothing huge.  My dad's ok.  I have bipolar type I.  My sister has ADHD (mother's brother has adult-onset ADD) and PTS, though the PTS is from childhood trauma.  This is to demonstrate not everyone is going to have a mental illness just because other people in the family do.

If any of your future children do, it doesn't mean the end of the road for them.  There are varying degrees that it affects people, and if you know to look out for symptoms, you can seek help for them sooner and have less risk for them to get bad before getting the help they need.  And bipolar disorder can be managed through meds and/or therapy.