One in 14 children who die in England has closely related parents, a new study has found.
The research, led by the University of Bristol, looked at children born to parents who share an ancestor and who had died between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2023.
Of the 13,045 child deaths recorded in the four years, 7 per cent (926) of the children were born to “consanguineous” parents, meaning the parents are close blood relatives.
The pattern remained consistent, with 8 per cent documented in 2019-20 and 7 per cent in 2022-23.
The data shows that children whose parents were close relatives died most frequently due to genetic issues such as chromosomal, genetic and congenital anomalies. Whereas the most common cause of death for children whose parents were not related was perinatal or neonatal reasons.
Karen Luyt, director of the National Child Mortality Database study said: “This is the first analysis of its kind globally looking at consanguinity-related child deaths across a whole country and over a number of years.”
“Those findings are stark: 7 per cent of child deaths over the period were of children born to consanguineous parents. These children might have died from any cause, but the data shows us very clearly that they are over-represented in mortality statistics. Action is urgently required to improve outcomes for this group.”
She added: “Another telling aspect of the findings is that children in the poorest neighbourhoods contributed the highest number of deaths – and that was true for both the children with consanguineous and non-consanguineous parents. In fact, this is a trend that we see across almost all causes of child death.”
A bill to ban first cousin marriages in the UK was put forward by Conservative MP Richard Holden and is currently at its second reading in the House of Commons.
Mr Holden told The Independent: “The findings of this report are deeply serious and deserve to be treated as such. There is clear, consistent medical evidence of elevated genetic risk associated with close-kin marriage, we have a responsibility to confront that honestly, just as we should with other risks of cousin marriage pertaining to individual freedom and societal cohesion.
“Government already legislates marriage in other close-relation contexts on safeguarding grounds, and they should legislate to cover that principle with first cousin marriage too.
“This evidence reinforces why I have introduced legislation to prohibit first-cousin marriage. Policy should always put the health and long-term wellbeing of children first.”
Dominic Wilkinson, professor of medical ethics at Oxford university told The Independent: “This study highlights that there are a significant number, though by far a minority, of deaths where parents are related, and the reason that this occurs is because when parents are related there’s an increased risk of serious genetic illness, and that can in a small number of cases, sadly be life limiting.”
However Mr Wilkinson, pointed out that the study does not specifically refer to first cousin marriages, but rather all types of relatives. He added “If you were to ban first cousin marriages, it wouldn’t solve the problem that’s in this report, because there are other degrees of relationship that also lead to serious genetic illness.”
“If we’re making policies that says we think you can have children and you can’t have children because of your risk of genetic illness, then that is this old fashioned, morally troubling form of eugenics, where we’re saying that the future health of the population allows us to restrict the choices of some people”.
Mr Wilkinson encouraged supporting parents so they can make informed choices about who they have children with and the elevated risks.
An NHS spokesperson said: “This report provides further clear evidence on the increased risk of genetic conditions and serious illness that having closely related parents carries, and highlights a worrying number of deaths in more deprived areas.
“With hundreds of children losing their lives in recent years, the NHS is running a small pilot which will test whether nurses with specialist training in these complications could prevent the death of vulnerable babies, targeted in areas where close-relative marriage is prevalent.”
