If you have a baby with your fourth cousin, based on the provided information, your baby would generally be about the same as every other baby. You and your fourth cousin would simply become the parents.
Understanding Fourth Cousin Relationships
Fourth cousins share great-great-great-grandparents. This means the genetic connection is quite distant compared to closer relationships like first or second cousins.
Key Outcome for the Baby
According to the reference:
- You would be a parent, and so would your cousin.
- Unless your community has been doing this for generations, your baby would be about the same as every other baby.
This indicates that for a typical scenario, the genetic risk associated with such a distant relationship (fourth cousins) is not significantly different from that of two unrelated individuals.
Community History and Potential Differences
The reference notes a specific exception related to community history:
- "Unless your community has been doing this for generations..."
- "People in inbred communities usually have fewer children."
This suggests that if a community has a long history of close-relative marriages (inbreeding), even more distant relationships like fourth cousins within that specific community might carry slightly higher risks due to a higher prevalence of certain recessive genes within that isolated group over time. However, for the vast majority of cases where a community does not have such a history, a baby born to fourth cousins would be typical.
In Summary
Having a baby with your fourth cousin primarily means you and your cousin become parents. Genetically, for most people, the child born from this relationship is expected to be similar to any other baby, with the relationship distance being significant enough that it doesn't typically introduce unique health concerns unless there's a specific, prolonged history of inbreeding within the family or community lineage.
