The area of health care which provides advice by the expert geneticists on genetic problems is called genetic counselling. It is not a technology but uses biochemical, statistical and physiological techniques to determine chances of occurrence of the actual disease. It thus plays an important role in the welfare of healthy society.

Genetic counselling is advisable for such persons who :

• have a birth defect due to genetic disorder. 

• plan to have children after the age of 35. 

• have had spontaneous abortions. 

• have a close relative with a genetic disorder/disability. 

• are parents of a child which has a birth defect or genetic disorder. 

• have ethnic disorders like sickle cell anaemia etc. Genetic counselling is helpful to those couples who think that there may be a risk of having a child with a congenital disease. The genetic counsellor then identifies the disorder and advises accordingly. This may allow couples to select the children free from sex-linked abnormalities in the children. Genetic counsellor thus helps in prenatal diagnosis.

Genetic counselling given by the experts is helpful to the prospective parents about the chance of their conceiving children with hereditary disorders. Due to growing knowledge of inheritance, now we have come to know that numerous disabilities have genetic origin. Some of these genetic disorders cannot be predicted easily but other can be. This has enabled us to predict the occurrence of certain genetic disorders such as haemophilia, cystic fibrosis, some kinds of muscular dystrophy etc. if we have proper information about the history of the disorder in the related families. Through genetic counselling, the history of a genetic disorder of the related families is researched and on the basis of this study, the parents are advised on the likelihood of that certain disorder arising in their children.