Dados do Trabalho

Title

Pregnancy from in vitro fertilization with heterologous ovum: to tell the child or not?

Objective

Analyse the intention to tell or not to tell the child about the use of a heterologous egg for conception.

Methods

This is a qualitative, exploratory and cross-sectional research. One hundred and nine people participated in the study, twenty-one of which were drawn for this research, among which seventeen were women and four were men. As inclusion criteria, individuals who underwent in vitro fertilization with donated eggs were selected, including heterosexual couples and single women. The instrument used was a semi-structured online questionnaire, from which one question was selected for the present study: “Until the present moment, do you think(s) at some point to tell your child about the egg donation treatment?” . The data were verified using the IRAMUTEQ software – which performs a qualitative analysis of the data and the content analysis, from which three categories were later defined: there is intention to tell the child about the use of egg donation; there is no intention to tell the child about the use of egg donation; there is indecision about telling the child about the use of egg donation.

Results

The results indicated that six participants intended to tell about the use of egg donation to their child. They considered it important that the child knew his story, about how he was conceived and about his origin, although they felt fearful about the possible reaction of the child to the revelation. Most participants (twelve) had no intention of telling their child. Among the reasons for maintaining secrecy are the consideration that it is irrelevant to tell, the agreements established between the couple to carry out the treatment, and the view that pregnancy is similar to a natural pregnancy, pointing to a denial of egg donation in response to the narcissistic wound that couples suffer in the face of infertility. Of the three individuals who were undecided about revealing the use of a heterologous egg to their child, the idea of not being able to deny the origin of the child is considered the frequent reason for wanting to tell, however the fear of the child's reaction to finding out, leads them to not wish to do so. In these cases, there is also concern about the existence of hereditary diseases that could be transmitted by the donor, which would lead to disclosure.

Conclusion

The intention of telling or not telling the child about the use of a heterologous egg is permeated by doubts and depends, largely, on the fears that the parents have about the future and on how they themselves have been elaborating the use of egg donation to conceive the son. It is important to point out that the research was carried out with couples who were pregnant or with very young children, and the theme of the secret in egg donation is more difficult for couples to think about when they still do not consider the moment to tell their child about it. Thus, the tendency is for couples to face more the question of “to tell or not to tell” as their children grow.

Keywords

Egg donation; in vitro fertilization; secret; parenting