Encouraging openness in gamete donation families

The article was headlined 'Assisted reproduction kids do well psychologically'.

This in itself was not necessarily 'news' since previously published studies had shown that samples of families created by IVF and by donor insemination were functioning well when the children reached adolescence.

The new element in the current study was the inclusion of a group of families with 12-year-old children conceived through egg donation, where it was hypothesized that the lack of a genetic relationship between mother and child could potentially have negative effects on mother-child bonding, and consequently, on child adjustment.

Our findings suggest that this is not the case, since egg donation mothers had warm relationships with their children and the development of the children themselves was normal.

This fits in with previous research, which has shown consistently that it is the quality of parenting and the desire to be parents that matters and not whether couples are the genetic parents of their child.

Assisted reproduction parents have repeatedly been found to be very involved with their children and very committed to parenting, a fact which is likely to be due to the effort they have put in to becoming parents in the first place.

Full article: BioNews.org.uk

Photo credit:Mother and daughter share a kiss,
by Chris Darling, on Flickr
Some rights reserved

---

TODAY'S BOOK SUGGESTION:
The Insider's Guide to Egg Donation: A Compassionate and Comprehensive Guide for All Parents-to-Be
by Wendie Wilson-Miller and Erika Napoletano

-- In their search for alternative means for building a family, those who face infertility turn to the nearly 500 reproductive specialty clinics across the United States.

While egg donors enter into the picture for a variety of reasons, every reason has the same desired result: a family to call one’s own.

Same-sex and single-by-choice parents are more prevalent than ever in the fertility industry, and there is no definitive, up-to-date guide to help families of all types approach egg donation, especially these niche groups. Resources are fragmented, true regardless of the family structure.

The Insider's Guide to Egg Donation is the first how-to-handbook that helps families of all types navigate the less talked about but widely practiced egg donor landscape with a warm and friendly tone, giving those in search of a different kind of stork the answers and information they need as they begin to research family-building options.

Paperback: 280 pages
Click to order/for more info: The Insider's Guide to Egg Donation

Start reading The Insider's Guide to Egg Donation on your Kindle in under a minute!

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

---

Category: Donor Egg, Egg donation, epigenetics, Genes