Mrs. R is in the middle of her second trimester, and she asks the doctor whether the baby can be affected at this stage. You know that this early in pregnancy, the baby has fetal hemoglobin; will this make any difference to the disease?

Normally the hemoglobin has two alpha chains and two beta chains while fetal hemoglobin consist of two alpha chains and two gamma chains.

So, the baby will safe from disease means disease will not affect the baby because baby has fetal hemoglobin at this second trimester stage.

If mother has thalassemia disease then the baby after birth has a 50% chance of disease to thalassemia but it depends on whether the father has thalassemia trait or not.

Yes . The disease cannot affect the the baby, fatal hemoglobin has no beta-globin

Explanation: Since the fetal hemoglobin does not have beta-globin chains, it will not have any effect on the baby. Since the pregnancy is still at the the early stage. They baby will not be affected because beta-globin chains is not present in fetal hemoglobin.

so what is your question?