Donor type and parental disclosure following oocyte donation

Historically, gamete donation has been characterized by donor anonymity and concealment from the child of the nature of her or his conception. A number of studies undertaken in various countries have explored parents’ views regarding disclosure to their donor-conceived children of the means of their conception. To date, most of the study populations relating to oocyte donation have been recipients of anonymous donation whose children have been aged up to eight years[1-11], although one recent Finnish study has included parents of children aged up to 14 years[12]. These studies have revealed intended disclosure rates of between 26%-81%, although not all parents indicating an intention to disclose will necessarily do so[6,8,9-11] because they may change their mind, may never find “the right time” or may have never intended disclosing in the first place, but wished to avoid giving a response that could be interpreted as less socially desirable. Three studies have examined disclosure behaviour over the same groups of parents over time, one undertaken in Finland[3,12] and two in the UK[7,9,13,14]. Despite some conflation of data and reporting ambiguities in the different phases of these studies, they suggest an underlying ethos towards increasing levels of disclosure among parents of children conceived following oocyte donation at least in Finland and the UK. Findings such as these have paralleled the increasing promotion of the desirability of disclosure among professional groups[15,16]. Advocacy of early disclosure has statutory reinforcement in the U.K., under Section13(6C) of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, which requires clinics providing ART services to inform those contemplating donor conception of: (a) the importance of informing any resulting child at an early age that the child results from the gametes of a person who is not a parent of the child, and (b) suitable methods of informing such a child of that fact. MacDougall and colleagues identified two alternative strategies that impact the timing of parental disclosure[10]. The “seed planting” strategy, adopted by parents to ensure Objective: To ascertain the perspectives of parents of children conceived via oocyte donation regarding donor anonymity and disclosure of the nature of their conception to their children. Methods: Information was gathered by means of an anonymous online survey initiated by the Donor Sibling Registry, in which 108 parents with 143 children conceived following oocyte donation and aged between one year and 15 years participated. Results: Parental use of an anonymous or open-identity donor-and regardless of parental choice of donor-makes very little difference to the timing of parental disclosure to their donor-conceived child about their conception. The median age of children at disclosure is about 3.5 years; UK/Australian parents seem more ready to tell their children at an early stage (median age around two years) than North American parents (median age around 4.5 years), although about three quarters of all children have been told by the age of six years. Considerable ambiguity among parents who intend to disclose to their children as to the optimal age of disclosure is evidenced. Conclusions: Parents’ experiences of disclosure to children at different ages need to be more thoroughly examined in order to establish a coherent body of knowledge that may facilitate improved evidence-based parental decision making. Asian Pacific Journal of Reproduction 2012; 1(1): 39-44