Good news for Shelbyville residents and Karen from Mean Girls: it’s officially scientifically OK to have kids with your cousins.
A landmark study led by Columbia University’s Yaniv Erlich, which traced a family tree consisting of 13 million people (including Kevin Bacon), revealed that the risk of birth defects in babies whose parents were first cousins is between four to seven percent.
If you’re not related at all to your kid’s other biological parent, the risk of defects is three or four percent.
Oh honey. No.
Four to seven is also about the same chance that a mother over 40 has of having a child with birth defects.
The study is kind of vague about what it means by “birth defects”, though. As a rule, more genetic variation between the parents gives them a better chance of passing down more diverse immune resistance, and of not saddling them with hereditary issues (which could be anything from recessive genes for major diseases, to just an unfortunate set of front teeth).
No, honey. No.
Of course, worrying about whether you’ll have healthy kids is likely the last of your worries if this revelation has personal relevance for you. It might be scientifically OK, but it’s still socially icky to go from hanging out naked in Gran’s paddling pool at Christmas to…hanging out naked.
It’s not like the taboos around marrying someone who’s part of your family exist purely for the sake of keeping the gene pool nicely mixed up. First cousins’ parents are siblings – imagine if your kid was getting it on with your sister’s kid.
See? Icky.
Oh, buddy.
Although technically, you’re tenth, eleventh or thirteenth cousins with pretty much everyone on earth.
And I hope that stat pops into your head when you’re about to pick up at the pub tonight.