If you are reading this, your healthcare provider (HCP) might have told you that your baby’s newborn screen suggests that he/she has an abnormal hemoglobin result on their newborn screen. These words can be scary, but we hope that the information on this website will reassure you that millions of people around the world are living their best lives with one of these abnormalities. We expect the same for your baby!
Before we go on, let us review red blood cells (RBCs). RBCs carry oxygen from the lungs to muscles and organs. Hemoglobin (Hb) is the protein inside the RBCs that holds oxygen until it is delivered. Hemoglobin is made up of 4 proteins (“polypeptide chains”): two are called “alpha globin” and two are called “beta globin”. Hundreds of different hemogobins exist in the world when there is a mutation in the instructions (“gene”) that make either alpha or beta globin.
