how do DNA changes get passed to their children, if all eggs are done being formed and already have the genetic material needed in their teen(?) years?
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So I am a woman with a genetic mutation. I was born with it. Something happened when I was an embryo, and there was a mistake made copying some of my DNA. That mistake was copied over and over and over as I developed, sort of like making a photocopy of a page with a smudge on it—all the copies will have that same smudge even if nothing else bad happens to them.
If I have children, my contribution to that embryo will come from an egg that has some percent chance of having been made with that mistake. Unlike normal cell replication, which is a direct photocopy, the process that makes reproductive cells is more like making a copy, tearing it up, and then collecting half the pieces somewhat randomly. So those reproductive cells aren’t guaranteed to have the part of the photocopy that was smudged. Some may have, but some may not. If the embryo is made with one of the eggs that has a bad copy, then the resulting child will have the same genetic mutation.
It doesn’t particularly matter when the egg or sperm were made in the person’s life time. If the parent has a mutation that they were born with, it can be passed on.
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