Consanguineous Marriage Influences On Pregnancy

Consanguineous Marriage Influences On Pregnancy

A genetic disease is a disorder which is inherited i.e. transmitted from parent to offspring through genes. Genetic diseases arise due to changes (called mutations) in genes which may be due to environmental agents (like ultraviolet light, chemicals etc.) or errors during the process of cell division. Marriages which take place between blood relatives are not healthy from the genetic point of view and are associated with an increased risk of abortions and congenital malformations.

The reason for abortion in such marriages could possibly be due to immunological rejection of conceptus where the lymphocyte cross reactive antigens of the mother and father are similar, and the maternal immune system cannot produce a protective response to maintain the pregnancy and it gets aborted. However, please note that a large number of the pregnancies end in a miscarriage (most of the time even before the woman realizes she is pregnant).

Deficiency of vitamin B also may contribute to feeling of excessive warmth. Thyroid deficiency may also cause a miscarriage. If your cycles always occur between 33 to 40 days, it is possible that you simply have a longer cycle. Chart your cycles for 3 months. If your period occurs at regular intervals, there is nothing to worry about. I also would recommend that you consult a genetic counsellor before you conceive again.

Each cell in the human body contains about 20,000 to 25,000 genes. Genes are structures present in the cells of all living beings (plants and animals) that are the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. They carry information that helps make what we are and determine traits or characteristics inherited from parents. Thus, parents pass some of their characteristics to their children via genes - physical characteristics like height, colour of hair, eyes, skin and even diseases or propensity to a disease. Each gene contains (encodes) instructions for making proteins which are the ultimate building blocks of everything in our body (both structurally and functionally).

The genetic influence in marriages between couples related beyond second cousins differs only slightly from that observed in the general population. The chance of having a child with a serious medical disorder in the general population (non-consanguineous marriage) is about 2% and this is marginally higher (3%) in a consanguineous couple (first cousins). That means the risk is not much higher than in other couples. The genes in common or shared in double first cousin/uncle-niece are 25%, first cousins 12.5% and second cousins 6.25%. Since relatives share some of their genes by common descent, consanguineous marriage influences the incidence of some inherited disease. The detrimental health effects associated with consanguinity are caused by the expression of rare, recessive genes inherited from a common ancestor.