[Hafsa Afzal]

A man weeps inconsolably in a hospital corridor as he has just been told how his beautiful, dark-eyed child died in a hospital cot with medical tubes snaking from her frail body as nurses fought unsuccessfully to save her. Sick with pneumonia, the two-year-old gave up the battle for life.
They probably hadn’t gone to the right doctors you wonder. Perhaps they hadn’t been able to afford the steep hospital fees you ponder. The coroner shares that the parents are blood related – first cousins to be precise.
It’s time high time we confront this taboo: First cousin marriages in Muslim communities are putting hundreds of children at risk. It is a medically proven fact.
In no way am I claiming that this is the shared scenario with every marriage which takes place between first cousins. Birth defects in children of cousins are the result when both parents have an abnormal recessive gene. This arises mostly with generation upon generation of first cousin unions. Most people do not have these, but even when they are present, the odds of their children having them are only one in four.
Many medical reports also claim that due to the relatively miniscule chance of birth defects, it doesn’t warrant the taboo. Nevertheless, it is an ongoing sticky situation we must acknowledge, thrusting our country at the forefront of its receiving end.
refrence: http://blush.com.pk/first-cousin-mar...ted-offspring/