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Research Recap
A small qualitative study of primary care physicians revealed significant knowledge gaps in caring for adult adoptees with limited family medical history. As noted in this letter to the editor, many donor-conceived people share similar challenges, including limited access to genetic history, potential identity considerations, and navigating healthcare systems that often assume biological connections to one's family.
Two related UK studies examined the experiences of same-gender female couples who used reciprocal IVF (where one partner provides the egg and the other carries the pregnancy). The studies revealed that couples choose reciprocal IVF to create shared biological connections to their child and validate both women as "real" mothers. While gestational mothers often experienced immediate physical bonds through pregnancy, genetic mothers typically developed connections that strengthened over time through parenting (Bower-Brown et al., 2024). Shaw et al. (2023) found that both types of mothers sometimes experienced feelings of insecurity despite their biological connections. Bower-Brown et al. (2024) also reported that most families minimized the donor's role in their family narrative.
In an Iranian study comparing donor-conceived and naturally conceived children aged 3-7, researchers found no significant differences in psychological adjustment or parenting styles between the groups. Most embryo donation parents had not disclosed—and many never planned to disclose—their children's conception method.
Swedish researchers studied how telling children about their donor conception affects families. Though many parents fear telling children about donor conception might damage their relationship or upset their children, the study found no significant differences in parental well-being, relationship quality, parenting stress, or children's emotional adjustment between families who had disclosed and those who hadn't.
Another study found that Finnish egg donors navigate complex feelings about genetic connections to donor-conceived children, simultaneously downplaying biological links while acknowledging their medical importance, balancing responsibilities to both recipient families and potential future contact with offspring, all while negotiating their own identity as neither parent nor stranger but something uniquely in-between.
In a study of New Zealand grandparents whose family members used assisted reproduction, researchers found that while initially valuing genetic connections, grandparents developed pragmatic approaches to kinship that prioritized loving relationships over biology, often expanding their traditional roles to provide additional support while emphasizing the importance of children knowing their origins.
After witnessing other donor conception families close to me navigate unexpected life challenges—death, brain injury, divorce, incarceration—I’ve seen firsthand what happens when carefully crafted plans go awry. Without thoughtful planning, your child’s understanding of their origins may become frozen at whatever point you last discussed it. Young children may never receive the elaboration they need as they mature. Teenagers processing their identity may be left with unresolved questions during an already painful time. Court-appointed guardians or well-meaning but uninformed relatives might make decisions based on outdated views about donor conception. Your child’s access to information could be delayed until adulthood—or prevented entirely. So, I came up with eight practical steps every parent through donor conception should consider to ensure their child’s access to information.
Other Tidbits
Fertility doctors stole one woman’s eggs to get another woman pregnant, and one of the women happened to be a therapist who counsels other families on donor conception. Read this long-form article in The Guardian.
A deep dive into fertility tourism, also known as cross-border reproductive care in research, from a Canadian POV.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I am also understanding the intersection of neurodiversity (adhd/autism) and experiences/perceptions of adoption and or donor conception.
Any studies that look at attachment styles and parenting satisfaction and or attachment theory and adoption or donor conception? I would imagine it would be hard to find studies that include attachment styles of families in donor conception because it digs deeper but I am looking for studies that look at how early childhood relationships with primary caregivers and attachment styles affect a person's perception of donor conception and or how they either approach parenting (could look at adoption if it is a parallel study) and or how an adult donor conceived person might experience their family depending on their attachement to their primary caregivers.