SAY NO TO CONSANGUINITY!!

July 1, 2013. Monday

This is my first day in pediatrics in 4^th semester. Today I met a mom who is struggling for her twin daughters’ life.
This 28 yr old woman, from Guntur had a consanguineous marriage. Her husband is a government teacher. She had a twin pregnancy and gave birth to 2 premature female babies at 29 weeks. The babies were in intensive care unit for about 2 months.

            

Now, the children are about 2 yrs. But unfortunately, they are congenitally deaf and dumb {because of malformations in inner ear}. They are suffering from CIPA {congenital insensitivity to pain and anhydrosis}. As they are insensitive they used to bite their tongue and bleed a lot. They landed up in anemia. They don’t sweat. They don’t shed tears. They can’t stand. They can’t walk. They can’t do any activities on their own. They had repeated lung and urinary tract infections. 

Knowing that his children are crippled, their educated father abandoned them. She fought against her husband for her children’s life; she left him and came in search for a better treatment to Hyderabad.

            

As the children are suffering from Genetical disease, there is no treatment for them. The cause for their suffering is their parent’s consanguineous marriage.

             

Parents get attached to their children through dreams, fantasies, illusions, and projections into the future. Children are their second chance, their ultimate "life products” the reflection and extension of their very being. By bringing a child into the world, if they have a short life expectancy and will have to endure great physical pain and cannot be helped, the suffering of those parents will be so unbearable.

            

Facing the devastating and continuing loss of having an impaired child, many parents are dropping their disabled children and some have even ran away from their marriages because of this.

           
 I believe that prevention of such incidences is better than having to deal with them. The only way to prevent this is to make people know about consanguineous marriages. Awareness is one of the major weapons that will help in this field.

            

The most appropriate and convenient time to instill the importance of preventing close marriages is the adolescent period and therefore it will be useful for every school to be alive to this problem and take the necessary steps to advise them. Parents must be advised of the dangers of close associations of their children with the children of their brothers and sisters during their adolescence.

           

The need to forge a close and friendly relationship and rapport with one's children at this stage and giving them the right advice will play a crucial role in the reduction of the frequency of such close marriages.

            

By decreasing the proportion of consanguineous marriages in the society, the amount of suffering would decrease. We, as an Indian citizen need to stress upon the individual awareness. {Hope everyone who reads this, will support me in making people aware}.