Study of Relation between Consanguinity and Somato- Physical Malformations

Preventing the birth of malformed neonates has been the aim of scientists for a long time. It has revealed that the risk of such children، especially with recessive inheritance diseases is much common among consanguineous marriages. Because of high frequency of familial marriages in Iran، this survey was done with the aim of investigating the relation between consanguinity and somato–physical malformations. This prospective cross-sectional study was done on 30 malformed children، derived of familial marriage، referred to Ghods rehabilitation center in Mashhad city in 2009. The survey was held on two stages on these 30 pedigrees. First، all malformed children in these pedigrees were compared according to the relationship between parents. Then، all marriages in the pedigrees were divided into two groups: familial and non familial and their relationship with somato–physical malformations was evaluated. Statistical analysis performed by SPSS software (version 19) and T-test. P less than 0. 05 was considered statistically significant. There were 158 familial marriage and 59 malformed children in the 30 pedigrees. Among malformed children، 47 children (79. 6%) were born from the three degree familial marriage، 8 children (13. 6%) from the four degree and 4 children (6. 8%) from non-familial marriages. Children malformation rate was significantly higher in familial marriage than non-familial (p=0. 002) and in the three degree familial marriage compared to the four degree (p=0. 035). In the next step، comparing the malformation between two familial and non-familial marriages، the difference was significant (p=0. 003). Somato–physical malformations are more probable in familial marriages. Besides، among familial marriages، somato- physical malformations are more in third degree ones.