One in five infant deaths in Redbridge were because the parents were closely related, a study found (Picture: Photographer’s Choice/Getty)

One in five child deaths in a borough of London were because the parents were closely related, a report has found.

Redbridge Council’s health and wellbeing board heard how 19% of infant deaths between 2008 and 2016 were ‘attributable to consanguineous relationships’.

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Consanguineous relationships refer to couples who are at least second cousins or more closely related and are legal in the UK.

They have proved contentious in Britain in the past but are more common elsewhere.


According to an article published last year in the Economist, around 40% of marriages in Egypt are consanguineous.

Redbridge Borough Council’s offices in Lynton House (Picture: Google)

The Redbridge report stated that 9% of the children who died in Redbridge were of Pakistani ethnicity.



But the council’s director of public health, Vicky Hobart, told the meeting the report should not be misunderstood, reports the Ilford Recorder.

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‘Consanguinity is very common in many cultures and the worry with something like this is that we are dealing with very small numbers,’ she said.

‘It is important to note trends but we should not read too much into it.’

Gladys Xavier, the chairwoman of the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP), told the board that ‘educational programmes’ had been rolled out among Asian communities in the area.

A ward map of Redbridge

She said schools had been asked to ‘put greater emphasis on genetics’ so pupils understand the complications around inter-family marriages.

According to a study looking at collated data from around the world in 2008, the risk of infant mortality in first-cousin marriages rose by 1.2%.

Professor Alan Bittles, director for the centre for human genetics in Perth, told the BBC at the time that he was in favour of genetic screening over a ban or limit on first cousin marriages.

He said: ‘It would be a mistake to ban it, people have been following consanguineous marriage practices for hundreds of generations and then we come along and say you are going to have to stop – no one will pay attention.

‘I would go for selective screening it would be much more effective.’

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