Josh Billings, a philosopher, once said that “Health
is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it”
That is akin to the institution of marriage. Marriage, a union of opposites, merging of attitudes and character, a bond for agreed minds, is believed by many to be a physical and emotional relationship. Marriage can be narrowed to how a husband and wife’s needs could be met by each other based on the willingness and devotion of their love for each other. In as much as it holds more than humans can comprehend, a lot still determines its success and so many lack the essence to give it life.
Challenges such as childlessness, bad character, lack of good cooking skills, inability to satisfy a partner’s sexual needs, incompatibility with in-laws etc have hindered the emergence of long lasting, relatively peaceful marriages the world over.
Looking back at the times of old, the days of our grandmothers and others, one cannot help but see the cordial relationship enjoyed by partners even in the face of seeming difficulties even when grandparents or parents of old saw the issue of discussing sex a taboo.
It is expedient to know that a healthy lifestyle has a lot to do with the sexual status of partners. Various ailments are known to cause sexual incompatibility such as hormonal imbalance and personal care products, among other factors. Several couples have fallen victims of diagnosis knowingly or unknowingly and have gradually been defined by the physical symptoms of their ailments.
Women are the worse hit with these ailments which ruin their chances of having a happy home and safe deliveries, as they are abandoned either due to low financial status or outright non-chalance and ignorance. Medical experts have always emphasized on the need for medical checks to ascertain the health and wellbeing of individuals, but their calls had fallen on deaf ears.
Tests such as the levels of estrogen, progesterone, hormonal levels, uric acid and the most less talked about Rhesus factor should be taken seriously by women of child-bearing age and those who are menopausal to be able to handle symptoms which might affect them in their marriages.
These symptoms are mainly caused by hormones running hay wire and if left untended can lead to complications which include painful sex, lack of sexual interest, barrenness, hair loss, bloated stomach amongst other factors that affect their marriage. Thus, individuals with the issue of still births after the first pregnancy should go check their Rhesus factor whether it be negative or positive.
A man who has Rhesus positive blood type will most likely have a child who is also positive. When this occurs during pregnancies, the woman’s body produces antibodies that attack the baby’s red blood cells to breakdown. The result of this situation is jaundice, anemia and brain or heart damage and in most cases still births.
Medical experts at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine say women in their mid-30s with blood type 0, appear to have a lower egg count and poor egg quality, something which is not common knowledge and has caused untold suffering to many, prompting them to run from one church to another in search of miracles.
Research has shown that many women don’t realize how quickly their fertility drops and how early that can start to happen and the knowledge that fertility treatments cannot always make up for the decline. The issue of fertility does not solely rest on the woman as the age of the man also matters. Though not well defined, research has suggested that there is a decrease in fertility for men over 40 and an increase in genetic disorders for children with older fathers.
Scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Library and the University of California discovered that older fathers are more likely to have children with autism, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, achondroplasia, which is a form of dwarfism and childhood leukemia.
Researchers also say that, semen quality peaks between the ages of 30 and 35 years of age and the overall semen quality declines after age 55 while a combination of female age and male age can further increase the risk of birth defects such as the Down Syndrome. There is also need to get a closer look at the issue of thyroid malfunction which can lead to goiter, a swelling in the neck.
The thyroid also helps in the growth and development of children. It also make the hormones, calcitonin which is involved in calcium metabolism and stimulating bone cells to add calcium to bone.
It is known that good thyroid function is necessary for fertility, the ability to conceive and maintain a pregnancy as an over or under-functioning thyroid can prevent pregnancy though there are also other varied reasons.
In all, couples should embark on extensive examination of each other to determine their compatibility no matter how much they love each other.
As citizens, it also behooves the government to provide affordable and accessible health care facilities to enable people access medical care, be it in the rural or urban areas.
Williams wrote from Port Harcourt

Tammy Williams