Summary‘Only by encouraging women to attend preconception clinics and thereby early pregnancy clinics can we hope to improve our knowledge of, and clinical management of this vital, and as yet largely ignored, period of human development.’(British Medical Journal, 1981)‘By submitting themselves to a sort of pre-conceptual MOT test, couples could dramatically alter their own personal risk scale in favour of having the perfect healthy baby they want.’(Hilton, 1982)