Objective: To determine whether consanguinity adversely influences pregnancy outcome in South India, where consanguinity is a common means of family property retention.Study Design: Data were collected from a prospective cohort of 647 consenting women, consecutively registered for antenatal care between 14 and 18 weeks gestation, in Belgaum district, Karnataka in 2005. Three-generation pedigree charts were drawn for consanguineous participants. w 2 -Test and Student's t-test were used to assess categorical and continuous data, respectively, using SPSS version 14. Multivariate logistic regression adjusted for confounding variables.Result: Overall, 24.1% of 601 women with singleton births and outcome data were consanguineous. Demographic characteristics between study groups were similar. Non-consanguineous couples had fewer stillbirths (2.6 vs 6.9% P ¼ 0.017; adjusted P ¼ 0.050), miscarriages (1.8 vs 4.1%, P ¼ 0.097; adjusted P ¼ 0.052) and lower incidence of birth weight <2500 g (21.8 vs 29.5%, P ¼ 0.071, adjusted P ¼ 0.044). Gestation <37 weeks was 6.2% in both the groups. Adjusted for consanguinity and other potential confounders, age <20 years was protective of stillbirth (P ¼ 0.01), pregnancy loss (P ¼ 0.023) and preterm birth (P ¼ 0.013), whereas smoking (P ¼ 0.015) and poverty (P ¼ 0.003) were associated with higher rates of low birth weight.Conclusion: Consanguinity significantly increases pregnancy loss and birth weight <2500 g.
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