Before the chimes of wedding bells.

Being in love and in a romantic relationship can be a very blissful feeling especially when the direction is known, heading towards tying the knot. As much as it feels so good to be in love, I believe that love is neither stupid, blind or ignorant.

Gone are the days when this cliche "love is blind" thrived. In this era and time, "the eyes and brain of love is open and alert" and rightly so. The increased birth mortality rate, down syndrome births and genetically defect births is alarming and a cause for concern. I'm sure no parent plans to have a baby with defects or birth complications. Every parent wants to have a healthy normal baby and this is very possible if certain steps are taken. One of such major steps is getting a medical test done for both partners before the big question is popped.

This medical test is usually coined as medical compatibility test which involves blod group testing and genotype testing. To be compartible simply refers to the ability to fertilize freely and easily in a relationship. This is highly essential as if the tests are waived off, it could lead to future complications in the offsprings and become a burden on the relationship itself. Let's go deeper into what a medical compartibility test entails....

What is a medical compartibility test?

These are series of medical tests done in a medical laboratory to identify potential incompatibilities between blood group systems and genotypes and the major purpose is to curb birth defects and future complications in offsprings.

As one who is scientifically inclined, I can give detailed explanation to lovers on how compatibility works. For starters, we must understand the various blood group types, rhesus factors and genotypes. When these are known and understood, it becomes easy to dive deeeper into the workings of what to expect from the medical tests.

Each blood group ( A, B, AB,& O) are attached with a protein (rhesus factors) on the surface of red blood cells. These proteins which are hereditary can affect foetal development during pregnancy. So we have rhesus positive and rhesus negative attached to blood groups when a blood test is done. The implication here is that if a rhesus positive male impregnates a rhesus negative female, the female needs to ne administered with a Rh immune globulin especially after the first pregnancy otherwise, she would suffer concurrent miscarriages in future (no one wants that, I believe).

Moving on to the genotypes, we have AA,AS,SS,AC & SC. It is scientifically proven that parental genes define the offspring genes. Take the chart below for clarity;

Parents. = Offsprings
AA + AA = AA,AA,AA,AA ( excellent outcome)
AA + AS = AA, AA, AS, AS (Good outcome)
AA + SS = AS, AS, AS, AS ( Fairly good outcome)
AS + SS = AS, AS, SS, SS ( bad outcome)
SS + SS = SS, SS, SS, SS ( very bad outcome)...

From the above genetic chart, we can see the favourable and unfavourable outcome when two genes are crossed. The genotype SS is linked with sickle cell anemia, an illness characterized by frequently falling prone to many illnesses. I have witnessed first-hand, the pains of losing a child to a sickle cell anemia after years of care and nuturing. Children who suffer from sickle cell anemia don't have a happy and normal childhood as they are always sickly. Think about the stress of running from one hospital to another whenever the child falls ill, it is so terrible and all these can be avoided, if lovers can get the tests done promptly.

Timing

Personally, I advice lovers and intending couples to get their medical tests done as early as six months into the relationship and if they had been tested previously, they should still go for other tests like;

Fertility test
Hepatitis test

• Std's test*
  Genetic condition history test
  HIV/AIDS test

All the above mentioned tests are essential for a medical smooth sailing of a relationship. No matter how much in love you are with your partner, you owe it to each other and your offspring to get these tests done and save yourselves future sufferings and pains.

If it is discovered that both partners are incompatible even if the relationship has been on for a long time, my advice is separation. You need to put posterity in view Be adviced that the feelings of love will wane when the relationship hits the rocks. To spare each other from such future pains and had I known's, the lovers should amicably bring the relationship to an end and move on with their lives for their own betterment.

Thank you all for reading. shalom

This post is my entry to the second question prompt for week #55 in the #hivenaijaweeklycontest.

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