Possible Role of Parental Consanguinity on Having Offspring with Hearing Impairment

Abstract

Hearing impairment could be caused of several factors regardless its type and degree of severity. The etiological role of genetic factors was confirmed in several international cohorts. It was also noted that parental consanguinity was factor for having offspring with HL.

In this study, the aim is to test the degree of association of parental consanguinity and hearing impairment in Palestine.

This study was carried out on 26 children with variable degrees of hearing impairment from Al-Murabitat school Qalqilya.

The Study period started from October 2018 to February 2019 (5 months).

We found that about 80.7% of parents were consanguineous. The most common type of consanguinity was first cousins (about 50%).

These results are consistent with several national, region and international cohorts. Together, all these studies revealed that parental consanguinity was more common as risk factor of hearing impairment than it was thought before. The practice of consanguineous marriage should be discouraged.