Consanguinity Marriage Increases Risk of Newborn’s Congenital Anomalies in Sulaimani City

Consanguineous marriage may cause the transfer of two recessive defective mechanisms, one from the mother and the other from the father, to offspring, which may cause the appearance of congenital anomalies. This study is aimed at determining the role of consanguineous marriage with congenital anomalies and their types in Sulaimani City. This is a retrospective case-control study based on hospital records. The study was conducted in Maternity Teaching Hospital of Sulaimani City from January 1 to December 31 of 2018. A record of 522 neonates (260 newborns with CA and 262 newborns with the absence of CA) were delivered from the Maternity Teaching Hospital and all private hospitals which were collected from the statistic section of the maternal and child care unit of the Preventive Health Department. The sample of neonates without congenital anomalies was collected randomly from hospital records, and stillbirth was excluded. Categorical variables were summarized as frequencies and percentages, while for numeric variables mean and the standard deviation were used. Chi-square test was applied to compare categorical variables and odds ratios using STATA 12. A p value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant if p smaller than 0.001 was reported as < 0.001. The mean age of the newborn children with CA was (1.79, SD 2.04) and for the mother’s cases was (29.59, SD 4.97). The commonest type of CA was congenital heart disease (25%); low birth weight and gender were statistically associated with types of CA (χ2 = 30.53 and p = 0.006 vs. χ2 = 45.3, p = <0.000, respectively). There was a significant correlation between parental marriage with anomalies (OR, 1.83, p = 0.001) and increase mothers age 30 years and over (OR, 2.56, p = 0.03). For eliminating this problem, there is an urgent need for educating unmarried people on the deleterious effects of consanguineous marriage, especially in Sulaimani City with high overall consanguinity rates.