Families created via identity-release egg donation: disclosure and an exploration of donor threat in early childhood
Author team: Jo Lysons, Susan Imrie, Vasanti Jadva, and Susan Golombok.
Read the full paper, here: doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2023.05.007
What we did
Children who are conceived by identity-release egg donation -can access information about their donor, once they turn 18.
In this paper, the authors spoke to families who had used identity-release egg donation.
We were interested in:
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whether the parents were worried about the impact of their child identifying their donor |
| whether those worries impacted whether or not they told their children about their conception |
What we found out
1. Telling children about how they were conceived:
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Most mothers intended to tell their children that they were conceived using an egg donor |
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Half of the mothers in this study had begun to explain this to their child by age 5 |
| Most of the other mothers planned to tell their children |
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A few mothers were unsure or did not plan to tell their children |
2. Telling children they can identify their donor, when they are old enough:
We asked whether mothers of 5-year-olds had told them that they would be able to find their donor's identifying information when they turn 18.
In the mothers we spoke to:
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Four mothers had started telling their child by age 5 |
| Most intended to tell their children about his in the future |
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Most mothers are worried to some degree about future contact between their child and the donor |
| These worries did not determine whether or not they told their children |
Read the full paper
Read the full paper, here: doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2023.05.007
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