How French donor-conceived adults experience learning about their origins
Disclosing donor conception: a mixed methods study exploring the experience and attitudes of French sperm donor-conceived adults born within heterosexual couples (Martin, 2026)
Martin, A., Gallissian, S., Daoud-Deveze, C., Gnisci, A., Faust, C., Martial, A., & Metzler-Guillemain, C. (2026). Disclosing donor conception: a mixed methods study exploring the experience and attitudes of French sperm donor-conceived adults born within heterosexual couples. Reproductive BioMedicine Online. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2026.105474
Geographic Region: France
Research Question: How can we understand the experiences and attitudes of donor-conceived people regarding the disclosure of their conception?
Design: Mixed-methods exploratory design. Data collection took place between March 2019 and September 2020 as part of the larger INFODON study on information-sharing practices in French donor-conceived families. The quantitative component was an online survey of 21 questions divided into three sections: background information, circumstances of disclosure, and how the story of conception had been managed in the family. The qualitative component involved 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted between July and December 2019. Interviews lasted between 64 and 295 minutes (average 131 minutes). The interview guide was inspired by life narrative techniques, covering participants’ family history, how they learned about their conception, and how it played out in their lives afterward.
Editor’s Note: The survey included one question to measure feelings about disclosure: Do you think that being informed of the facts of your conception has been beneficial to you? (Yes, No, I don’t know).
Sample: Survey: 107 sperm donor-conceived adults from heterosexual parents, predominantly women (87%), aged 20 to 54 (average 33 years). Interviews: 20 donor-conceived adults from heterosexual parents, predominantly women (85%), aged 21 to 53 (average 34 years). All participants were recruited through calls to participate on the Assistance Publique-Hopitaux de Marseille website, media coverage, social media, professional websites including the French CECOS Federation, and interest groups such as Procreation Medicalement Anonyme and Association des enfants du don.
Key Findings
Theme 1: Age at Disclosure Was Not the Primary Factor in How People Experienced Disclosure
Survey participants found out about their conception at an average age of 18.6 years, and just over half (53%) learned as children or teenagers. The average time between disclosure and survey participation was 14.5 years. Interview participants were informed at an average age of 19.7 years, and most were informed as adults (55%). The average time between disclosure and interview was
14.2 years.
The majority of survey participants (85%) considered being informed about their donor conception to have been beneficial, regardless of the age at which they learned. The researchers ran an exploratory statistical test to see whether there was a relationship between age at disclosure and whether people viewed disclosure as beneficial. The test found no meaningful association between the two. The authors interpreted this result as evidence that age is not a primary factor in how people experience disclosure.
Editor’s Note: The study was small (107 people), and the researchers didn't report whether they had enough participants to reliably detect a relationship even if one existed. This means the statistical results should be interpreted carefully because the study might have been too small to pick up on a real pattern. A non-statistically significant result technically means "we didn't find evidence of a relationship," not "we found evidence of no relationship."
The authors state that these findings are in partial tension with a larger U.S. study (Applegarth et al., 2025, n=422) that found higher satisfaction among those informed before age 15.
Editor’s Note: I’d argue that the two studies actually measured different things. Applegarth et al. asked about satisfaction with how people learned, a specific evaluation of the disclosure experience itself. Martin et al. asked whether people considered disclosure beneficial, a broader, more reflective question. These are related but not the same question.
Theme 2: Four Paths to Disclosure
Path 1 - Parental strategy: Disclosure was part of an intentional information-sharing plan agreed upon by both parents, often at the time of conception. Participants in this path were often informed from birth or in early childhood. 43% of survey participants had always known or were informed at a time chosen by their parents.
Path 2 - Life event triggers: Parents who had been uncertain about disclosure ultimately decided to tell when events made it feel necessary, such as the donor-conceived person facing illness, parent death or illness, or milestones like going to university or having their own children. The authors argue that even when an event prompted disclosure, parental agency and choice were still present. 11% of survey respondents experienced disclosure of this nature.
Path 3 - Family conflict: 17% of participants were told during a conflict with or between their parents. These disclosures were often initiated by one parent alone, breaking a prior agreement with their partner. These disclosures tended to carry additional relational complexity.
Path 4 - Donor-conceived person initiates: Some individuals (10%) prompted disclosure themselves by asking questions about their origins, noticing physical differences from their father, or seeking genetic health information before having children. The authors note this shows donor-conceived people were active agents, not just passive recipients of their parents’ decisions. The survey also found that 14% of respondents discovered their conception by accident, such as through DNA testing, overhearing a conversation, or finding a document.
Theme 3: Mothers as the Central Actors in Disclosure
In the survey, 46% of participants were told by their mother alone, and 29% were told by both parents together. Only 9% were told by their father alone.
Among the 83 survey participants (78%) who were able to discuss the topic again after the initial disclosure, 46% noted a difference in how their parents engaged with the topic, and 36% said they had only discussed it further with their mother.
Three factors were identified to explain why mothers were more central: (1) the structure of fertility treatment protocols, which require mothers to attend all appointments and undergo all procedures regardless of the cause of infertility, making them keepers of information; (2) social stigma around male infertility, which led some donor-conceived people to avoid raising the topic with their fathers to protect them from pain; and (3) broader gendered family dynamics, with fathers described as more emotionally reserved and less likely to engage with intimate topics.
The study also found that initial disclosure does not automatically lead to ongoing openness. Some participants described being unable to revisit the topic with their parents, even when they wanted to. The authors distinguish between disclosure (a specific event) and openness (an ongoing relational quality), noting that these are not the same.
Limitations: The study was conducted exclusively with donor-conceived people from heterosexual families in the French anonymous donation context, limiting transferability to other countries, family structures (such as same-sex parent families or solo-mother families), and identity-release contexts. Several participants were likely members of donor conception interest groups, creating a risk of selection bias toward people who are more engaged with their donor conception identity. The retrospective nature of the data introduces recall bias. No validated psychological measures were used. The primary outcome - whether participants found disclosure ‘beneficial’ - was a single self-report item. This cannot be compared to studies using standardized wellbeing or adjustment scales. The authors acknowledge this explicitly. The study does not address conflation of disclosure with donor conception per se: outcomes may reflect family communication quality, parental relationship quality, or the circumstances of disclosure rather than anything inherent to being donor-conceived.
Applications: For fertility clinicians, counselors, and psychologists, the distinction between disclosing and maintaining ongoing openness is clinically important. For mental health professionals working with donor-conceived people: Circumstances and relational context matter at least as much as age when assessing how a person experienced learning about their conception. Practitioners should not assume that early disclosure automatically means the experience was uncomplicated, or that later disclosure necessarily caused harm. Assessment should explore the pathway, the key actors involved, and the relational dynamics before and after disclosure.
Funding Source: French Agency of Biomedicine (Agence de Biomedecine), grant reference AOR nr. 2018-A02515-50.
Lead Author: Anais Martin is a French social anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, currently affiliated with the NorPro ANR Program, whose doctoral and postdoctoral work focuses on kinship, donor conception, and the experiences of donor-conceived people and gamete donors in France, England, and Canada. No personal connection to donor conception has been disclosed.
Regulatory Context:
Prior to the 2021 reform: French law mandated strict donor anonymity from 1994 onward. No identifying or non-identifying information about donors could be shared with recipients or offspring. Donation was required to be free (no payment beyond expenses), voluntary, and anonymous. Only public or non-profit health facilities authorized by the regional health agency were permitted to perform donor conception procedures. Access was restricted to heterosexual couples facing medically diagnosed infertility or at risk of transmitting a serious disease.
The 2021 bioethics reform (Loi n 2021-1017 du 2 aout 2021 relative a la bioethique) introduced three transformative changes: (1) access to donor conception was extended to lesbian couples and single women; (2) anonymous donation was ended - all new donors must consent to identity-release, and donor-conceived individuals may request identifying information about their donor when they turn 18; and (3) fertility professionals are now legally required to encourage recipients to create conditions enabling them to inform their child, before reaching adulthood, that they are donor-conceived (Article L2141-10 of the French public health code). The new rules apply to donations made from 2025 onward. In 2021, France expanded its comprehensive national health insurance coverage for fertility treatments to lesbians and single women.
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