| Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.  |
| Couple with newborn baby illustration |
(Scroll down for video) A new study shows that babies born to parents, who are also first cousins, face a high risk of suffering from life-threatening defects, according to a study released this week.
The odds of having a baby with life-threatening birth defects doubled in the case of "first cousin marriages", the study has revealed.
From a sample of almost 11,000 births between 2007 and 2011, more than 2,000 babies were born to parents, who are first cousins.
Researchers at the University of Bradford and the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, found that six percent of the children of such unions were suffering birth defects, compared with an average 3 percent for other babies born to non first cousins.
The new "Born in Bradford" study suggests that children born to parents who are not first cousins, but were closely related, also had an increased risk of birth defects.
Some Islamists and some ultra-Orthodox Jews typically marry their first cousins.
The research was published in the journal The Lancet.
