Written By: Pavitra Sampath | Updated : March 24, 2014 10:24 AM IST
I am a 27-year-old man and my parents have decided to get me married to a close relative. My bride-to-be is 23 years old. I would like to know what problems could arise if I marry a close relative. I will be the third generation that is marrying this way (my grandfather, my parents are also married to close relatives). However, we were born without any abnormalities. I am concerned whether I should worry about our future children's health. Are there any medical tests we can go for to know if our children will have some kind of congenital (genetic) problems?
You are right. Marrying within a family can lead to abnormalities in your future offspring. This is because within a family, certain genetic traits remain dormant and are known as recessive genes (they are not seen as a disease or condition). When two people having the same genes marry and reproduce, these once dormant recessive (ineffective) genes double, making them more likely to cause genetic abnormalities in children. Although, the fact that people who marry within the second generation are more susceptible is fairly true, in your case, this might not be the case. Since you mentioned that your grandfather and parents have had marriages within the family, your children are at greater risk due to the overcrowding of the gene pool.
To explain better, think of it this way. If your grandfather had some recessive genes and he married someone in the family with those same recessive genes -- those once dormant genes become dominant (more likely to cause genetic abnormalities). Your parents then got married within the same family making the concentration of these recessive genes even more. Now when you marry someone within your family, this gene pool will further become dense with recessive genes, due to both your genes getting added to the pool, making the possibility of your children having genetic abnormalities very high.
As for the tests, there are some like the genetic susceptibility tests, that can be performed to check for diseases you both are susceptible to, this in turn will tell you about the diseases that your child is likely to suffer from. You can perform these tests but they will not tell you conclusively about the illnesses that your future child might have. (Read: Congenital heart disease -all your queries answered)
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