Reproductive Behavior and Health in Consanguineous Marriages

Abstract

In many regions of Asia and Africa, consanguineous marriages currently account for approximately 20 to 50% of all unions, and preliminary observations indicate that migrants from these areas continue to contract marriages with close relatives when resident in North America and Western Europe. Consanguinity is associated with increased gross fertility, due at least in part to younger maternal age at first livebirth. Morbidity and mortality also may be elevated, resulting in comparable numbers of surviving offspring in consanguineous and nonconsanguineous families. With advances in medicine and public health, genetic disorders will account for an increased proportion of disease worldwide. Predictably, this burden will fall more heavily on countries and communities in which consanguinity is strongly favored, as the result of the expression of deleterious recessive genes. However, studies conducted in such populations indicate that the adverse effects associated with inbreeding are experienced by a minority of families.

Developing and evaluating a culturally appropriate genetic service for consanguineous South Asian families

“…In the general population, the risk of abnormality or death in early childhood is about 2% to 2.5% for nonconsanguineous couples compared with 5% for consanguineous couples. It has been suggested by Bittles et al (1991) that most of this increase occurs in a sub-set of consanguineous families that happen to harbour recessive mutations, suggesting that identification of these high-risk families would provide an opportunity to provide targeted genetic services. Autosomal recessive disorders vary in severity, but many lead to early death or chronic disability and therefore they impose a significant health and economic burden on families and health care services.…”

Consanguineous marriages, pearls and perils: Geneva International Consanguinity Workshop Report

“…Contrary to common opinion, consanguinity is not confined to Muslim communities. Many other religious groups, including the Lebanese, Jordanian and Palestinian Christian populations, also practise consanguineous between uncles and their nieces (F = 0.0125) 16 .…”

An Analysis of Consanguinity and Social Structure Within the UK Asian Population Using Microsatellite Data

“…This result suggests some variation in the proportion of consanguinity in this Pakistani sample. The majority of Pakistani immigrants trace their origins to rural Mirpur and, as other studies have observed (Rao & Inbaraj, 1977;Bittles, et al 1991;Bittles, 1994), the highest rates of consanguinity are to be found in rural communities. It appears that this trend has continued in their immigrant descendants.…”

“…Marriage within Pakistani Muslim societies, however, has fewer exclusions: first order relatives; parents, sibs and parent's sibs (Ballard, 1990). Amongst Punjabi Muslims, an active preference for first cousin marriage is also common (Bittles et al 1991) and there is evidence that such arrangements are increasing in prevalence (Darr & Modell, 1988). One other important aspect of Pakistani Muslim societies is the extent of family networks that develop through biradheri endogamy, where marriages within these large kin-networks often occur between related individuals (Darr & Modell, 1988;Ballard, 1990).…”