The NHS is teaching midwives the ‘benefits’ of cousin marriage despite it increasing the risk of birth defects, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

New guidance says concerns about the risks of congenital diseases are ‘exaggerated’ and ‘unwarranted’ on the grounds that ’85 to 90 per cent of cousin couples do not have affected children’. The national average rate for unaffected children is 98 per cent.

Admitting there are some ‘risks to child health associated with close relative marriage’, the guidance says these should ‘be balanced against the potential benefits… from this marriage practice’.

And marrying a relative – fairly common in the Pakistani community – can offer ‘economic benefits’ as well as ’emotional and social connections’ and ‘social capital’, the document says.

It adds that staff should not ‘stigmatise’ predominantly South Asian or Muslim patients who have a baby with their cousin, because the practice is ‘perfectly normal’ in some cultures.

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The guidance was produced as part of NHS England’s Maternity Transformation Programme which aims to halve the number of stillbirths, neonatal and maternal deaths and brain injuries by 2030.

The document, used as training for midwives, states that ‘discouraging cousin marriage is inappropriate’ and would be ‘alienating and ineffective’.

It adds: ‘The increased risk of genetic conditions among the offspring of close relative couples has often been exaggerated . . . leading to individuals feeling shamed and blamed.’

The guide says, ’85 to 90 per cent of cousin couples do not have affected children’, and adds: ‘Pakistani women in cousin marriages have been found to compare favourably to those in non-relative marriages’.

It argues that ‘marriage within the family can provide financial and social security at the individual, family and wider kinship levels’. The risk, says the guide, are ‘exaggerated’ and there has been an ‘unwarranted, narrow focus on close relative marriage’.

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