Children of cousin marriages

Living in a joint family, I grew up among family members who are unable to hear or speak. Yes, my father’s siblings are deaf and mute. Therefore, I adopted sign language and developed that as a way of communication.

Primarily, talking to them was amusing and seemed different but later I realised the kind of difficulties the deaf and mute had to face while being in isolation and not being able to communicate with everyone.

As I grew up, I was able to figure out the cause for my father’s siblings’ deafness and muteness.

The cause was related to inter-family marriages. My grandparents were cousins and their parents were also cousins. The faulty genes were handed down from that generation and made an impact on my father’s generation.

According to the findings of the 2012-13 Demographic and Health Survey, conducted under the authority of the Ministry of National Health Services, Pakistan has a high rate of marriages between cousins. Fifty per cent of all marriages in Pakistan are between cousins, 52 per cent of which are in rural areas and 38 per cent in urban areas. When there’s no marriage within families in previous generations, the risk of genetic disorder in cousin marriages is twice as much. In the offspring of unrelated parents the risk is 3 per cent while in the children of cousin marriages, the risk is 6 per cent.

The risk increases to more than 6 per cent when there have been inter-marriages in previous generations as well. The more distantly related the couple, the lower the risk.

Children of unrelated parents are at low risk of inheriting a faulty gene. Since our genetic information is passed down to us from our parents and grandparents, family members will have more similarities in their genetic information hence faulty genes.

To avoid the consequences of inter-family marriages, the urban and especially rural population should be educated on the effects. People who have had an experience should share their stories so that people who are planning to get married are made aware of the problems.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th,  2015.