Effects of antigenic incompatibility on reproductive performances of four ethnic groups of Orissa

The effects of ABO antigenic incompatibility have been of much interest to geneticists with their role in sterility, differential fertility, risk of f etal and neonatal deaths and also in maintaining the blood group polymorphi sm. The results of the present study on four ethnic populations of Orissa a re not in full agreement with the findings of the previous studies. The occ urrence of infertile couples is higher among compatible couples than among the incompatible couples. The incompatible couples have not shown lower rat e of conception and pregnancy as compared to compatible couples as expected . Since pre-natal deaths;are higher in incompatible couples, the couples wo uld have gone for more number of pregancies in order to compensate the loss es. Although incompatible couples experienced higher proportions of pre-nat al and post-natal deaths in comparison to compatible couple, the difference so observed failed to attain statistical significance between two categori es of couples. The segregation of blood groups of children between two type s of reciprocal matings demonstrated that the expected loss of children bel onging to specific type of antigen having incompatible situation with their mothers has not occured in all groups except Mahato. In the maintenance of blood group Polymorphism, it is observed that the eff ect of selection due to ABO incompatibility has not been that drastic or se vere at least in permitting extrapolation to its impact on gene frequencies .