The effect of consanguineous marriages on reproductive wastage.

A stratified representative sample size of 5,007 Kuwaiti females aged 15 years and above was drawn during 1983 and structurally interviewed to study the influence of consanguineous marriages (up to the second cousin) on reproductive wastage. Losses comprised prenatal deaths (abortions and stillbirths) and neonatal deaths (up to the first month of life). The rate of consanguineous mating in the sample was 54.3% with 95% confidence limits estimated rate 52.9% to 55.7% when projected over the whole Kuwaiti population. First cousin marriages accounted for 30.2% of the sample followed by 22.1% less than first cousin (first cousin once removed and second cousins) and 2% only double first cousin. The study showed higher prenatal and neonatal losses among consanguineous (14.2%, 2.97%) than nonconsanguineous (13.97%, 2.54%) although not statistically significant. No consistent increase in reproductive wastage was evident as the inbreeding coefficient, F, advances mainly because of decline in the wastage rate among the double first cousin marriages which represents only 2% of our sample.