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Hsia et al.³³² emphasized that genetic counseling is an educational process in which the counselee acquires a set of facts and options. Fraser's²⁶³ essential message was that genetic counseling does not involve telling families what they should do but rather what they can do. We maintain that members of the health professions should adopt as a guiding principle the critical imperative that the concept of genetic counseling be introduced in high school and in continuing public education^335–339 about genetic disease. Children sensitized in school about the importance of the family history, elements of heredity, concepts of individual susceptibility and risk, and opportunities for anticipatory prevention of unnecessary catastrophes are likely to better comprehend pregnancy risks and options.

Genetic counseling and prenatal diagnostic services are of little avail if many women attend for their first antenatal visit after 16 weeks of gestation. Currently, this is the case in many urban hospitals in the Western world, where between 20 and 40 percent of obstetric patients arrive at this late stage. Education beginning in high school and continued by public health authorities could effectively communicate the critical importance of preconception and prenatal care.