The effect of consanguineous marriages on reproductive wastage

Abstract

A stratified representative sample size of 5,007 Kuwaiti females aged 15 years and above was drawn during 1983 and structurally interviewed to study the influence of consanguineous marriages (up to the second cousin) on reproductive wastage. Losses comprised prenatal deaths (abortions and stillbirths) and neonatal deaths (up to the first month of life). The rate of consanguineous mating in the sample was 54.3% with 95% confidence limits estimated rate 52.9% to 55.7% when projected over the whole Kuwaiti population. First cousin marriages accounted for 30.2% of the sample followed by 22.1 YO less than first cousin (first cousin once removed and second cousins) and 2% only double first cousin. The study showed higher prenatal and neonatal losses among consanguineous (l4.2%, 2.97%) than nonconsanguineous (13.97%, 2.54%) although not statistically significant. No consistent increase in reproductive wastage was evident as the inbreeding coefficient, F, advances mainly because of decline in the wastage rate among the double first cousin marriages which represents only 2% of our sample.

Is consanguinity prevalence decreasing in Saudis?: A study in two generations

“…On the other hand, adverse effects of consanguinity in terms of reproductive behaviour, reproductive wastage, higher morbidity and mortality and genetic problems have been described extensively in the literature [10,17,31,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. One of the major harmful effects is a higher frequency of rare autosomal recessive disorders in the offspring of consanguineous mating [17,16].…”

The Effect of Consanguinity on Neonatal Outcomes and Health

“…Among consanguineous unions, first-cousin marriages consistently had a higher frequency of mortality compared to a more distant relatedness, further supporting the evidence of the effect of underlying consanguineous genetics on neonatal outcomes [37] . On the other hand, a Kuwaiti study [38] did not show a significant difference in prenatal and neonatal mortality between consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages. A study by Barbour and Salameh [39] in Lebanon did not find a correlation between consanguinity and offspring mortality, although consanguinity was associated with spontaneous miscarriages and childhood chronic morbidities (OR = 1-2).…”

Consanguinity, endogamy, and genetic disorders in Tunisia

“…Indeed, unions between relatives are generally associated with an increased risk of abortions, stillbirths (Al-Awadi et al 1986;Hussain 1998Hussain , 1999Hussain et al 2001), perinatal mortality (Stoltenberg et al 1999), and congenital malformations Chéhab et al 2006;Yunis et al 2006).…”