Reproductive health effects of consanguineous marriages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Objectives: to explore the health effects of consanguinity in particular the pregnancy outcome,infant mortality and congenital malformations in khyber pakhtunkhwa. material and methods: present study was carried in gynae “b” labour room / gynae “b” ward khyber teaching hospital from november 2013 to april 2014. two hundred cases including 100 consanguineous and 100 non consanguineous patients as control,representative of all geographic locations in kpk were randomly selected to find out the relationship of reproductive health problem with consanguinity. this study indicates a predominant public health problems associated with cousin marriage and a need for specific genetic counseling. results: a total of 200 cases were studied,100 in the consanguineous and 100 in the non-consanguineous marriage group. main outcome measures were health effects of consanguinity in terms of pregnancy outcome including live births,abortion and still births,infant mortality and congenital mal formations. in the first group abortions were 11% as compared 3% in the 2nd group intrauterine deaths were 7% in the consanguineous group and 2% in the non-consanguineous group. congenital malformations were 12% in the consanguineous and only 1% in the non-consanguineous marriage group. the infantile death rate was also high in consanguineous group being 7% as compared to 2% in the non-consanguineous group. conclusion: consanguinity marriages has a detrimental effect on many aspects of reproductive health in khyber pakhtunkhwa. © 2015 khyber medical college. all rights recerved.