Embryo donation families: A follow-up in middle childhood.

Abstract

Couples who conceive using donated embryos rear a child to whom they are genetically unrelated. It has been suggested that this may have negative consequences for parenting and child development. Findings are presented of the second phase of an exploratory study of families with a child conceived through embryo donation. Seventeen embryo donation families with a 5-9 year old child were compared with 24 adoptive families and 28 in vitro fertilisation families. The quality of the mother's parenting, and the child's social and emotional development were assessed using standardised interviews and questionnaires administered to mothers and teachers. Embryo donation children were not at increased risk of psychological problems during middle childhood and the families were generally functioning well. However, higher emotional over-involvement of embryo donation parents was found, along with more reluctance to disclose the method of family creation. These preliminary findings are discussed in terms of implications regarding the importance of genetic and gestational relationships between parents and children.2 Embryo donation families: Follow-up Since the birth of the first IVF baby nearly 30 years ago (Steptoe & Edwards, 1978), the number of couples using assisted reproductive techniques (ARTs) has steadily increased. By 2002, approximately one in every 100 babies born in the US was conceived through ARTs (American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2008). Furthermore, in the UK in 2004 nearly 30,000 couples attempted fertility treatment, a three-fold increase on the frequency in 1991 (HFEA, 2005). One form of ART is embryo donation, where an embryo created by the gametes of one couple is donated to another couple who then rear the resulting child. Unlike straightforward IVF, embryo donation was developed more recently and is less frequently used, with an average of ~35 embryo donation children born per year in the UK over the last decade (HFEA, personal communication). Concerns have been raised about the potentially adverse psychological consequences of this new method of family formation, but very little research has investigated the experiences of embryo donation families.Conceiving a child using donated embryos results in a family structure where the child is not genetically related to either parent, paralleling that seen in adoptive families.Adoption presents children with specific psychological tasks including coping with the knowledge that they are adopted, and incorporating this awareness into a coherent sense of identity (Triseliotis, Shireman, & Hundleby, 1997). Outcomes for the psychological development of adopted children are mixed. Non-clinical studies of adopted children do not find them to be at risk of problems with temperament or development in infancy and early childhood (Carey, Lipton, & Myers, 1974;Plomin & DeFries, 1985). However, in middle to late childhood, some adoptees exhibit higher levels of psychological maladjustment than nonadoptees (Brand & Brinich, 1999). One possible explanati...

Socioemotional Development in Changing Families

“…A similar pattern was found for egg donation families in the United Kingdom (Golombok, Murray, Brinsden, & Abdalla, 1999; and in Finland (Söderström-Anttila, Sajaniemi, Tiitinen, & Hovatta, 1998). With respect to embryo donation, found that only 9% of parents of preschool children born through embryo donation had begun to talk to their children about the children's biological origins, rising to only 18% by middle childhood (MacCallum & Keeley, 2008). This was in stark contrast to the comparison group of adoptive parents, all of whom had disclosed the adoption to their children (MacCallum & Keeley, 2012).…”

“…In the only study of parenting and child development in families formed through embryo donation, families were found to be functioning well when the children were of preschool age (MacCallum, Golombok, & Brinsden, 2007) and when followed up in middle childhood (MacCallum & Keeley, 2008). The parents differed from comparison groups of adoptive and IVF parents only in terms of greater emotional overinvolvement with the children.…”

“…The parents differed from comparison groups of adoptive and IVF parents only in terms of greater emotional overinvolvement with the children. The children were not found to be at increased risk of psychological problems either in their preschool or their early school years (MacCallum & Keeley, 2008).…”

Attitudes towards embryo donation in Swedish women and men of reproductive age

“…A larger proportion (45%) thought that the donor should be anonymous to the recipient, and 47% thought that the recipient should be anonymous to the donor. A British study showed that nearly half of the mothers of children born after embryo donation were not going to tell their children about this (28). Many studies suggest that parents of children being conceived through various types of donations would rather not want that the child knew about the donation.…”

Ethical issues in embryo donation

“…Evidence on the psychological development of embryo donation children has found that they show no problems during the early and middle childhood years, suggesting that the current system is not having adverse effects (MacCallum and Keeley, 2008). However, from an ethical analysis, the three reasons discussed seem inadequate to support the status quo, and suggest that social factors should have more of a role to play in embryo donation, as they do in adoption, albeit in a proportional manner.…”