title: Premarital health counseling: A must.
abstract: Premarital Health Counseling (PMHC) is emerging as a growing trend worldwide. The couples are provided with accurate and unbiased information and assistance, who are planning to get marry with the aim of screening, educating, and counseling about nutritional disorders, communicable diseases, medical conditions, hereditary/genetic disorders, and guiding for a healthy pregnancy. Premarital screening and adequate counseling are essential for changing attitudes toward consanguineous marriage particularly in places where consanguineous and "tribal" marriages are common, resulting in a high incidence of genetic disorders. Although making PMHC obligatory in India may appear to be a very exciting and promising proposal, its implementation still has various ethical issues and other barriers that need to be addressed.
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Puri
authors.affiliation: Demonstrator, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Anupama
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dhiman
authors.affiliation: Internee, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India.
authors.forename: Sagar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bansal
mesh_terms: D003241:Consanguinity; D003376:Counseling; D006266:Health Education; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008393:Marriage