Congenital Malformations and Consanguinity

Abstract

In this study in Bahrain increased maternal age, high parity, consanguinity and a history of 2 or more previous abortions were found to increase the risk of congenital malformation.

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].…”

“…In the majority of the states of the United States of America, cousin marriages are illegal under statutes passed in the 19th and 20th centuries [9]. Consanguinity occurs in all countries of the Middle East, however, the prevalence varies significantly, ranging from 10.6% to 67.7% [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Neural Tube Defects in the Asir Region of Saudi Arabia

“…Consanguineous marriage is an important correlate of congenital malformation. 15,16 In a study of congenital malformation in Al Qassim City in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia, 54% of patients with congenital malformation were of consanguineous marriages. 17 In a study conducted on 3103 Saudi females, the consanguinity rate in different provinces ranged from 52% to 68%, with the highest prevalence in first-cousin marriages.…”

The Impact of Consanguinity Worldwide

“…Several studies have shown that the rate of congenital malformations among the offspring of consanguineous marriages is approximately 2.5 times higher than that among the offspring of unrelated parents (table 1) [15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24]. The main cause appears to be the expression in the offspring of autosomal recessive disorders, although congenital malformations that are structural in nature and that have not been classified as typical autosomal recessive conditions have also been demonstrated [24].…”