Emotional Adjustment of Donor Conceived Kids & ParentsQ: Are families created via sperm or egg donation as emotionally close as families created through unassisted conception?

A: Dr. Susan Golombok, the Director for Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge says: “At the University of Cambridge Centre for Family Research we have been following up children born through egg or sperm donation in 2000 to examine their development and well-being as well as the quality of their relationships with their parents.

To date, the families participated in the study when the children were aged 1, 2, 3, 7 and 10 years old. We have found these families to be just as emotionally close, if not more so, than the comparison group of families with naturally conceived children. It seems that the absence of a genetic link between a parent and the child in donor-conceived families does not interfere with the development of a close bond between them. This was found to be just as true of children born through sperm donation as of children born through egg donation.”

This topic was discussed in more detail on the Creating a Family show: How are Kids Conceived via Sperm/Egg/Embryo Donation Doing?

Image Credit: Evil Erin