Q: Can short-statured couples become parents? Of children with dwarfism? Of average-size children?

A: Yes. The odds vary with diagnosis, but a person with achondroplasia has one dwarfism gene and one "average-size" gene. If both parents have achondroplasia, there is a 25 percent chance their child will inherit the non-dwarfism gene from each parent and thus be average-size. There's a 50 percent chance the child will inherit one dwarfism gene and one non-dwarfism gene and thus have achondroplasia, just like her or his parents. And there is a 25 percent chance the child will inherit both dwarfism genes, a condition known a double-dominant syndrome, and which invariably ends in death at birth or shortly thereafter.