Essentials of Genetics 9th Edition by Michael Palladino William Klug, Michael Cummings, Charlotte Spencer

Exercise 1

Genetic dwarfism
Seven months pregnant, an expectant mother was undergoing a routine ultrasound. While prior tests had been normal, this one showed that the limbs of the fetus were unusually short. The doctor suspected that the baby might have a genetic form of dwarfism called achondroplasia. He told her that the disorder was due to an autosomal dominant mutation and occurred with a frequency of about 1 in 25,000 births. The expectant mother had studied genetics in college and immediately raised several questions. How would you answer them?
How could her baby have a dominantly inherited disorder if there was no history of this condition on either side of the family?