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Hum. Reprod. Advance Access published online on March 3, 2006
Human Reproduction, doi:10.1093/humrep/del039
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received August 29, 2005
Revised December 22, 2005
Accepted January 9, 2006

Article

Consequences for parent-child relationships and the psychological well-being of mothers, fathers and children at age 3

S. Golombok 1 *, C. Murray 2, V. Jadva 1, E. Lycett 2, F. MacCallum 3, and J. Rust 4

1 Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
2 Family and Child Psychology Research Centre, City University, London
3 Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry
4 The Psychometrics Centre, Cambridge Assessment, Cambridge, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
S. Golombok, E-mail: seg42{at}cam.ac.uk


  Abstract

BACKGROUND: Findings are presented of the third phase of a longitudinal study of children conceived by assisted reproduction procedures involving surrogacy and/or donor conception. METHODS: At the time of the child’s third birthday, 34 surrogacy families, 41 donor insemination families and 41 oocyte donation families were compared with 67 natural conception families on standardized interview and questionnaire measures of the psychological well-being of the parents, mother-child relationships and the psychological well-being of the child. RESULTS: The differences found between family types reflected higher levels of warmth and interaction between mothers and their 3-year-old children in assisted reproduction families than in families with a naturally conceived child. A higher proportion of surrogacy parents than donor conception parents had told their children about the nature of their birth. CONCLUSIONS: It appears that the absence of a genetic and/or gestational link between parents and their child does not have a negative impact on parent-child relationships or the psychological well-being of mothers, fathers or children at age 3.

Keywords: child development/donor insemination/oocyte donation/parenting/surrogacy.
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