Should We Do Premarital Medical Check-Ups?

Marriage is an event that makes life happy. It is so beautiful and special event for the bride, so that the event will be prepared earnest. Therefore, it is desirable to prospective bride to enter a health examination before marriage activities into a series of marriage preparation. For some people, tracing the family medical history, especially the family of the prospective spouse is still considered a taboo. In addition, the fear of the bride wedding will be cancelled in case of examination found a particular disease or disorder.

To get rid of the fear and the supposed taboo, we need to know the purpose and benefits of premarital medical check-ups. The purpose of premarital medical check-ups is to take precautions against congenital disease possibility from each family, which must be addressed with wisdom. By knowing as early as possible the health condition of each prospective bride, it will be easier to do prevention efforts that may cause abnormalities to the offspring or miscarriages.

Here are several benefits derived from premarital medical check-ups:

1. Know the status of the health condition of the couples in general.
2. If there are health problems, it can be addressed.
3. Helping to prepare mentally for the prospective bridegroom.

Premarital check-ups include:

1. Hematology analysis (examination of hemoglobin, leukocytes, erythrocytes, platelets, cell counts, etc.)
2. Peripheral blood picture, to knoe the disorder of blood diseases, such as Thalassemia trait.
3. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate, to determine the inflammatory process.
4. Blood type and rhesus factors, to determine the possible blood type of the baby.
5. Urine routine, to monitor kidney function and urinary tract.
6. Fasting glucose, to determine Diabetes Mellitus.
7. HBsAg, to know of any liver disease (Hepatitis B).
8. VDRL, to determine the existence of syphilis disease.
9. TORCH (for the prospective woman bride), to detect the infection by parasite Toxoplasma, Rubella virus, Cytomegalo virus, and Herpes virus, which when attacking a pregnant woman can cause miscarriage, abnormalities in the fetus, and premature births.