Successful parents of in vitro fertilization (IVF): The social repercussions

Abstract

A matched comparison was made of 157 parents of preschool twins conceived by one of the following: in vitro fertilization (IVF), infertility workup combined with infertility drug treatment, or spontaneously. The Interview Schedule for Social Interaction was used to examine systematically a comprehensive range of social relationships and the asymmetries therein. Overall, IVF parents reported having deficient social relationships compared with non-IVF parents, and this deficiency was both in size and in affective quality of their available relationships. As anticipated, mothers reported less adequate and available social relationships when compared with their spouses. In the event of a significant finding, mothers from the three groups always had lower mean scores than the fathers. The finding of the extent to which IVF parents were not as socially integrated, compared with the other families of preschool twins, highlights the need to strengthen through mutual aid IVF parents' social networks. The data also suggest the need for ongoing patient care by IVF teams and for support groups to be established exclusively for IVF parents of twins.

Observed Mother– and Father–Child Interaction Differences in Families with Medically Assisted Reproduction‐Conceived Twins and Singletons

“…Findings from this study with MAR twins may generalize to twins conceived without fertility treatments, but differences between families with MAR and non‐MAR children should be considered when attempting this generalization. Parents who conceive children after MAR may have diminished social support and parenting efficacy compared with parents who did not use fertility treatments to conceive children (Hammarberg, Fisher, & Wynter, ; Munro, Ironside, & Smith, ); these constructs are related to poorer parent–child relationship quality (Belsky, ). Families that use MAR to conceive children are often more aware of twin risks, and in some MAR treatments such as IVF, parents can make treatment decisions to increase the probability of twins due to a desire for twin births (Sharara, ).…”

The Disclosure Decisions of Parents Who Conceive Children Using Donor Eggs

“…Religious dilemmas were reported by Catholic and Jewish respondents in the Pettee report. Respondents recommended that couples who are considering the donor egg option develop a support network, which is noteworthy in light of another study (Munro, Ironside, & Smith, 1992) reporting deficient social relationships in IVF parents compared with non-IVF parents.…”

Maternal adjustment, parenting and child behaviour in families of school‐aged twins conceived after IVF and ovulation induction

“…Only a few studies have examined differences in families with twins conceived via IVF/OI and those conceived naturally. Munro, Ironside, and Smith (1992) compared 80 families with pre‐school age twins conceived naturally or after IVF and found that parents who conceived their twins after IVF showed poorer social support than non‐IVF parents. Cook, Bradley, and Golombok (1998) compared 12 families with four‐ to eight‐year‐old twins conceived after IVF to 14 twin pairs naturally conceived and found that the IVF group reported greater parenting stress but no differences in parenting quality or child behaviour.…”

“…While many studies with singletons have found parenting in IVF families to be superior to parenting in naturally conceived families, these findings have not been observed in the few studies that have been done with families with twins. The few studies which have examined the effects of IVF/OI in families of twins have suffered from methodological problems such as small sample sizes and control groups that are poorly matched for confounding variables, such as maternal age and number of older children (Colpin et al, 1999; Cook, Bradley, & Golombok, 1998; Munro et al, 1992). In addition, these studies have obtained eligible families from a select number of fertility programmes or hospitals, so it is possible that their samples are not representative of the population who have conceived twins after IVF and OI.…”