World-first study finds that families with babies born after embryo donation are doing well, but only a third of parents plan to tell their children how they were conceived.
Berlin, Germany: The world’s first study of families in which babies have been born from donated embryos has revealed that only a third of parents planned to tell their children about their origins.
Fiona MacCallum told the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology that this was a significant difference when compared with families with children conceived through IVF using the parents’ own eggs and sperm, and with families where a child has been adopted in infancy. Over 90% of IVF parents and 100% of adoptive parents planned to tell their children about their origins.
However, the study showed that the greater secrecy did not seem to affect the children adversely, and although there was more emotional over-involvement amongst the embryo donation parents, there were no differences between them and IVF or adoptive parents in terms of parental warmth and the quality of parenting.
Ms MacCallum, a research psychologist at the Family and Child Psychology Centre, City University, London, UK, said: “The most common reasons for not telling the child about their method of creation were fears that it would upset the child or damage family relationships, and also a feeling that, since the mother carried and gave birth to the child, she was the real mother and so there was no need to tell the child anything different.”
Ms MacCallum studied 21 families with a child conceived through embryo donation. Embryo donation is a process whereby surplus embryos resulting from IVF procedures are donated to infertile couples. Children conceived this way are raised by two parents with whom they share no genetic relationship, although the parents experience the mother’s pregnancy and the birth of the child.
She compared them with 28 families with children adopted as babies, and 30 families with children conceived through IVF. All parents were interviewed and completed questionnaires when the children were aged between two and five.
“Embryo donation parents obtained significantly higher scores on measures of emotional over-involvement and defensive responding than did the adoptive or IVF parents. However, we found no differences between the three groups for parental warmth, the quality of the parenting, or the behavioural and emotional functioning of the children.