Can We Marry? -- We are Both A+

Dear Dr,
I am a regular reader of your column titled You & Your health, in the
SUN newspaper. I want you to know about my situation. I am A+ and the girl I am dating is also A+. Can we be married to each other? Please enlighten me more about this. Please, I need your reply.
Thanks,
Celeste Gbosau, Badagry

Dear Celeste,
Ordinarily, you can get married. When we talk blood from the lab/ test/marriage angle, we have to differentiate two different but very important concepts. The first is the genotype --the type of Hemoglobin you have. The second is blood groups--what type of blood is your class or category. The two are different but often --understandably, though, confused for one another. Every human being has blood that belongs to one of four classes or groups A or B or O or AB. By another classification--the Rhesus classification -- all human beings are either Positive or Rhesus Negative. The big significance of grouping is the simple but very true and sobering fact that if you are given blood from another group that is not your own, death is the result. So the most important application of Blood group Serology is that of transfusion--simply find out the correct blood group needed to help some dying, bleeding patient from accident, fractures, operation, delivery or gunshot wound. Before a certain doctor called Carl Landsteiner discovered that humans are pre--grouped into these four groups, attempts to transfuse blood to bleeding victims of war, injury and damage was usually fatal and no one understood why. Until Dr Landsteiner elucidated it around 1900/1901, it was an extremely dangerous thing to have blood transfused--more often than not the patient died. Genotype is another matter entirely. Genotype refers to the type of Hemoglobin that a person carries. Hemoglobin is the dye or pigment that colours the blood red and carries oxygen around the body. Genotype is what you need to ascertain before you marry because the practical application is in heredity. If you are genotype AS, this means your parent 1 gave you An A; the other an S. And you in turn can give either an A or an S to your offspring. If your wife to be is also AS, for example, the same applies as above. Now, if you married and each time you both made a baby, you give that baby your S each, then you will have an SS as a child. Hemoglobin S is a variant hemoglobin that easily forces the red blood cell carrying the hemoglobin to assume a sickle--looking shape rather than the biconcave disc that red cells are meant to have. The result of this scenario is anemia--not enough blood for the victim; early death; suffering before death and so on. That is why it is a good thing for intending couples to go ahead and do the necessary lab tests to determine they are not risking having SS babies.
Now back to your question: You both can marry if your genotype and/or faith allow it. So do your genotype before we conclude on the matter. The A+ you mentioned is just Blood Groups--implications for blood transfusion only; not for heredity and the inheritance you are liable to give your children.
Cheers

Dr. Caleb Bibbi Oluranti