Expert: Ivan Goldberg, M.D. - 10/19/2007

Question
We have the chance to adopt a 1 year old.  Mother was a cocaine user but in a treatment facility entire pregnancy and baby was healthy and not born positive for drugs.  Mother has been diagnosed at one point as schizophrenic (but that diagnosis is not being applied).  Then she was diagnosed as bipolar.  Whether these diagnosis stem from drug use, or she used diagnosis as a way to get assistance is unclear.

Is the baby likely to be bipolar or schizophrenic in your opinion, or do most of the mother's statements seem to be results of long drug use and manipulation of benefits?  Is bipolar something you can diagnosis at age 1?  Any thoughts are appeciated.

Answer
Michelle, Hi . . .

To answer your question properly would require a book and I do not have the information to write that book.

I know just about none of the details of the genetics of schizophrenia except to say that adoption studies in which the children of schizophrenic parents when growing up in adoptive homes, free of schizophrenic individuals have a high incidence of schizophrenia. But I do not know how high.

When it comes to the children of parents with bipolar disorder, there is data showing that if one parent has  bipolar disorder, the chance of the child having the disorder is 15% and if both parents have bipolar disorder, the probability of each child developing it is 50%.

It is impossible to tell if a 1 year old child will develop schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Best regards . . .
Ivan
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