Association of consanguinity with neonatal asphyxia at birth: Evidence from Pakistan

Consanguinity commonly known as inbreeding is a state of offspring borne to couple sharing same ancestors. It is a least researched non-obstetric determinant of adverse birth outcome in developing countries like Pakistan. This hospital based study was designed to investigate the association between consanguineous status and neonatal asphyxia measured measured as low APGAR scores after birth in 879 newborns.The data regarding consanguineous status was obtained retrospectively. Potential covariates were incorporated for finding confounding effects. Data was analyzed in SPSS version 26.0 as mean ± standard deviation, unadjusted & adjusted odds ratios by logistic regression at P-values ≤ 0.05 significance for associations. Over 36.1% newborns were consanguineous, delivered with APGAR < 6 at 1-minute compared to 5.2% born to non-consanguineous parents. Premature birth was the single most important factor associated with neonatal asphyxia and low APGAR at 1 & 5-minute after birth. After adjusting for confounding variables, first cousin couples' offsprings showed OR of 9.1 & 4.1 for APGAR score ≤ 6 at 1 & 5-minutes after birth, respectively (P < 0.001 & P =0.001). We conclude that consanguinity is a strong determinant for neonatal asphyxia reported as low APGAR scores in this population of new borns.