title: Impact of consanguineous marriages and degrees of inbreeding on fertility, child mortality, secondary sex ratio, selection intensity, and genetic load: a cross-sectional study from Northern India.
abstract: The aim of our study was to understand the relationship between consanguineous marriages and reproductive outcomes.
  
  
  
  A total of 999 families were recruited from five Muslim populations of Jammu region. Family pedigrees were drawn to access the family history and inbreeding status in terms of coefficient of inbreeding (F). Fertility, mortality, secondary sex ratio, selection intensity, and lethal equivalents were measured using standard methods.
  
  
  
  The significant differences for gross fertility was found to be higher among inbred groups as compared to the unrelated families (P < 0.05) and higher mortality rates were observed among consanguineous families of all populations in comparison with the non-consanguineous family groups. Moreover, the prenatal and postnatal child mortality rates (i.e., U5MR and U18MR) have presented a persuasive increase with an upsurge in the homozygosity level. The mortality rate was found to be maximum among families with the highest value of coefficient of inbreeding (F). The selection intensity (SI) also showed inflations among families with respect to their increasing inbreeding coefficients. The greater values of lethal equivalents per gamete (LEs/gamete) were observed for autosomal inheritance in comparison with sex-linked inheritance.
  
  
  
  Our conclusive assessment brings out the deleterious consequence of consanguineous marriages on reproductive outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
authors.forename: Mohd
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fareed
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Srinagar, India.
authors.forename: Mir
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kaisar Ahmad
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
authors.forename: Malik
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Azeem Anwar
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Afzal
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D046688:Child Mortality; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003241:Consanguinity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005298:Fertility / Q000235:genetics; D040741:Genetic Load; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008393:Marriage; D008875:Middle Aged; D010375:Pedigree; D011247:Pregnancy; D012744:Sex Ratio; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors