How to get first submenu item path? I need to create a link to first submenu item from specific menu. The link will be placed in custom block.

To be more precise, I have a menu with following structure:

parent-menu
 item-1
 item-2
 item-3
 ..


I need that after clicking "parent-menu" user would end up in item-1 page. Also, there will be several links in some blocks, linking to "parent-menu" - they need to open 'item-1' item too.

My current approach is to create 'parent-menu' page template override which finds top child item from 'parent-menu'. That page will be linked from content and main menu.
Problem is that I need a way to find first menu sub item from code.

UPDATE:

Ended up on using query:

$link_path = db_select('menu_links', 'n')
-&gt;fields('n', array('link_path'))
-&gt;condition('n.plid', '269', '=')
-&gt;orderBy('weight', 'ASC')
-&gt;range(0, 1)
-&gt;execute()
-&gt;fetchField();


Is there any alternative way to do this, without querying database?
I found this module Menu Firstchild maybe it will do what you want it to do.