Pre-marital Tests

For most people, the joy of finding true love and deciding to go into matrimony with a spouse knows no bound. However, most people enter into this lifelong union without adequate knowledge of their partner’s health status and become disappointed and frustrated with marriage because of their partner’s medical conditions that could have been identified and tackled before this lifelong commitment. Premarital tests may help in this regard. The knowledge of your intending partner’s health status by no means implies that marriage is not possible but it gives you an avenue to make informed consent and it enables you and your spouse seek proper medical care early to prevent unnecessary stress and burden during marriage.

Pre-marital Screening 

A premarital test is one in which couples who are about to get married are tested for genetic, infectious and blood transmitted diseases to prevent any risk of transmitting any disease to their children. Nowadays premarital testing is considered an important issue, owing to the increase in number of children affected with genetic or blood transmitted diseases. 

Importance of Premarital Screening

Hereditary diseases cause great suffering for the next generation of the children. World has made rapid progress in some health related aspects such as infant mortality, life expectancy, and access to health care. A recent survey states that significant genetic diseases or birth defects that may affect pregnancies and cause childhood deaths. On the other hand, inherited disorders and gene disorders have drastically risen among the new-borns, accounting for a considerable proportion of perinatal and neonatal mortalities.

For these reasons, it is suggested that couples go through the screening process before getting married. Premarital screening immensely helps in reducing the number of children with inherited diseases. It is a comprehensive group of tests for those who are planning to get married and highly beneficial for the couples who are under the following catagories:

• Couples going for consanguineous marriage
• If either/both have family history of a serious genetic condition
• If they are ‘carriers’ of the same faulty gene
• If they have exposure to some chemical or other environmental agent
• Any abnormalities in the chromosomes 

Medical Tests You Should Do Before Marriage

1. TEST FOR HIV AND OTHER SEXUAL TRANSMITTED DISEASES (STDS)

With the current prevalence of HIV and other STDs, it is important that spouses should request for their partners to be screened for these diseases before marriage. HIV, hepatitis B and C are lifelong conditions that if not properly managed can put serious strain on the marriage. The knowledge of your partner’s status helps you protect yourself/ seek for adequate medical care if your partner turns out to be positive and you also decide to go ahead with the marriage. Lifelong care and support is needed for partners who are infected. Other STDs discovered through premarital tests e.g. gonorrhea, syphilis, bacterial vaginosis and warts can be treated with proper medical care. This reduces the risk of infertility and miscarriages during marriage.

2. TEST FOR BLOOD GROUP

Knowledge of your spouse blood group is important before marriage because of rhesus isoimmunization blood group incompatibility that affects the fetus. This test is easy to perform and result is usually ready within 30 minutes. Blood group is assigned to an individual as A, B, O and AB with another component known as the Rhesus factor which is referred to as positive or negative. Women with rhesus negative blood group married to rhesus positive husbands have a greater chance of rhesus incompatibility where the mother produces antibodies (body defence system) to target the red blood cells of the growing fetus (rhesus positive fetus) leading to intrauterine death and miscarriages. Knowledge of your spouse blood group, through premarital tests, will alert your doctor to institute preventive measures which are used to prevent rhesus incompatibility reactions during pregnancy.

3. FERTILITY TEST

This may sound out of place or weird, but truth be told, fertility test is another of the premarital tests that all intending coupes should do before saying ‘I DO’. This is important because fertility issues can be addressed as early as possible without the unnecessary biological, psychological, social and emotional trauma associated with barrenness. Fertility test typically includes: seminal analysis for the men to assess for male fertility; hormonal assay for both couples e.g. FSH, LH, Prolactin, Testosterone, estrogen and progesterone; test for ovulation for the women, pelvic ultrasound scan may also be needed to assess the internal reproductive organs for any congenital or acquired abnormalities.

4. TESTING FOR POSSIBLE GENETIC/CHRONIC MEDICAL CONDITION

Marriage is a lifelong commitment with both partners looking after each another. Knowledge of possible genetic or chronic conditions of your partner wouldn’t be harmful but it will go a long way in assisting both couples on how to best prepare for the challenges ahead. Early testing allows couples seek medical care before the medical conditions gets to its terminal stage. This test depends on the region and the common chronic/genetic condition seen in that populace.