Image: UCLA
As it is important to think about life after a wedding ceremony, pre-marital health screening should form an integral part of the discussions of any couple preparing to tie the knots. But love is a crazy thing and the rush of emotions that comes with a blossoming relationship usually knows no bound. It’s not surprising therefore that many prospective couples take such vital thing as a pre-wedding test for granted. Carried away by love and warmth, it is easy to think that a laboratory test sounds too cold.
This unhealthy tendency is the norm all over the world. And it is particularly prevalent in Nigeria, apparently because of the average man’s level of education. Even the so-called ‘enlightened’ class do not pay any particular attention to pre-wedding tests.
Basically, the goal of a pre-wedding check is to ensure that couples become aware of their health status and takes precautionary measures, make informed decisions, and prevent avoidable stress and burden during marriage, and prepare adequately for future implications.
Here are some of the tests that a prospective couple should take:
- Full Medical Body Test
- HIV test
- Blood Group and Rhesus Factor Test
- Genotype Test
- Fertility Test
- Hepatitis and other STDs test
In case you don’t see the point yet, imagine that you’re stuck in a dream. In this dream, you found someone with whom you have chemistry. You guys fall in love. You get engaged, announce your marriage, and stage the biggest wedding of the century. Three years down the lane, both of you visits the hospital to confirm a suspicion you’ve been nursing.
The doctor carries out certain tests, comes out ten minutes later and says, “I’ve got good news and bad news.” You ask him what the good news is, and he says you’re pregnant with a bouncing baby boy. And then you ask him what the bad news is, and he says that you and the baby have been infected with HIV; that your baby is a sickler, and that your husband—apart from being HIV positive—is also chronically ill.
Now that would hurt, wouldn’t it?