AboutSophia Jane Expertise I can answer basic questions related to heritable diseases, and moderate level questions regarding genetics and biology in general. Please, no questions on what your future children will look like. I will happily answer questions regarding the inheritance of hair or eye colour, genetic diseases, genetic traits, etc..., but anything phrased as "I look like X and my partner look like Y; what will our baby look like?" will be sent to the question pool.
Experience
Education/Credentials BA (biological) anthropology, UC Berkeley.
Expert: Sophia Jane Date: 2/29/2008 Subject: blood types
Question Can 2 0+ parents make a+ and a o+ children?
Answer Thanks for the question, Marianne. Blood type is determined by the blood group (A, B, AB, or O) and the rhesus factor (+ or -). Normally, two O+ will only have O+ children, but there exists a rare condition called Bombay phenotype.
People who exhibit the Bombay phenotype can not produce A or B antigens, so while they may actually have blood group AO or BO a standard blood typing test will show up as only the O group. In the rare event that an individual actually has the Bombay phenotype, it is possible that any children they have with an O+ person will be of the A or B blood type.
