One in 14 children who die in England has closely related parents, study finds
A new study has revealed that one in 14 children who died in the UK were closely related to their parents.
The research, conducted by the University of Bristol, examined children born to parents who shared the same ancestor and died between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2023.
Of the 13,045 child deaths recorded in four years, 7 percent (926) of the children were born to “consanguineous” parents, meaning the parents were close blood relatives.
This pattern has remained consistent; 8 percent was documented in 2019-20 and 7 percent in 2022-23.
Data shows that children whose parents are closely related most often die due to genetic problems such as chromosomal, genetic and congenital anomalies. The most common cause of death in children whose parents are not related is perinatal or neonatal causes.
Karen Luyt, director of the National Child Mortality Database study, said: “This is the first analysis of its kind to look globally at child deaths due to consanguineous marriage across the country and over multiple years.”
“These findings are striking: 7 per cent of child deaths during this period were children born to consanguineous parents. These children could have died from any cause, but the data tells us very clearly that they are over-represented in death statistics. Urgent action is needed to improve outcomes for this group.”
He added: “Another striking aspect of the findings is that children in the poorest neighborhoods contributed the most deaths – and this was true for children with both kin and non-consanguineous parents. In fact, this is a trend we see across almost all causes of child death.”
A bill to ban first cousin marriages in the United Kingdom has been put forward by Conservative MP Richard Holden and is currently undergoing a second reading in the House of Commons.
Mr Holden said Independent: “The findings of this report are extremely serious and deserve to be treated as such. There is clear and consistent medical evidence of the increased genetic risk associated with close-consanguineous marriage, and we have a responsibility to confront this honestly, just as we must confront other risks of cousin marriage to individual freedom and social cohesion.”
“The government already legislates to protect marriage in other intimate relationship contexts and should legislate this principle to extend to first cousin marriage.
“This evidence reinforces why I am introducing a law banning first cousin marriage. Policy should always put the health and long-term well-being of children first.”
Dominic Wilkinson, Professor of Medical Ethics at Oxford University, said: Independent: “This study highlights that there are a very small but significant number of deaths where parents are related, and this is because the risk of serious genetic disease is increased when parents are related, which can unfortunately be life-limiting in a small number of cases.
But Mr. Wilkinson noted that the study covered all types of relatives, not specifically first-cousin marriages. He added: “If you banned first-cousin marriages, it wouldn’t solve the problem identified in this report because there are other degrees of relationship that lead to serious genetic diseases.”
“If we’re making policies that say we think you can have children and you can’t have children because of your risk of genetic disease, then that’s an old-fashioned, morally problematic form of eugenics where we say the future health of the population allows us to restrict some people’s choices.”
Mr Wilkinson encouraged supporting parents so they can make informed choices about who to have children with and the high risks.
An NHS spokesman said: “This report provides clearer evidence of the increased risk of serious disease carried by genetic conditions and closely related parents, and highlights the alarming number of deaths in poorer areas.
“With hundreds of children dying in recent years, the NHS is running a small pilot to test whether nurses with specialist training in these complications can prevent the deaths of vulnerable babies targeted in areas where inbreeding is common.”
