Building a family with gamete donation : perspectives of parents and offspring

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the long-term psychosocial consequences for heterosexual couple families following oocyte donation (OD) and sperm donation (SD), in the context of the Swedish legislation. An additional aim was to explore how heterosexual couple families following SD experience the process of obtaining identifying information about the donor.

Methods: As part of a prospective longitudinal study, two cross-sectional studies assessed aspects of psychosocial well-being among OD and SD families with seven-yearold children (Study I) and 13 to 17-year-old adolescents (Study II). Two qualitative interview studies explored the experiences of obtaining identifying information about the donor from the perspective of 29 adult children (Study III) and 23 parents (Study IV).

Results: Study I showed that donor conception families’ psychosocial well-being is within normal levels and is not related to whether or not the parents have disclosed the use of donor conception to their seven-yearold child. Study II revealed that donor conception families’ psychosocial wellbeing is within normal levels and similar to a reference group of parents using IVF with own gametes, but that SD mothers to a significantly higher extent reported symptoms of anxiety indicating clinically relevant levels (31%) compared to OD mothers (7%) (p=.018). Study III described that searching for donor information could fill varying needs for the adult donor conceived person and that the process of obtaining donor information meant having to balance interests of different stakeholders. Study IV showed that parents’ experiences were influenced by how they perceived parenthood in the context of nature and nurture, which was related to how the parents managed the presence of the donor.

Conclusions: Donor conception does not appear to be detrimental to the psychosocial well-being of families. However, both parents and their adult children face several challenges in the process of obtaining identifying information about the donor.

List of scientific papers

I. Widbom, A., Sydsjö, G., and Lampic, C. (2022). Psychological adjustment in disclosing and non-disclosing heterosexual-couple families following conception with oocytes or spermatozoa from identity-release donors. Reproductive Biomedicine Online. 45(5), 1046–1053.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2022.06.011

II. Widbom, A., Paulin, J., Sydsjö, G., Skoog Svanberg, A., & Lampic, C. Comparison of heterosexual couples with adolescent children following oocyte donation, sperm donation or standard IVF with regard to psychological distress, family functioning, and parentchild relationship – a long-term follow up study. [Manuscript]

III. Widbom, A., Isaksson, S., Sydsjö, G., Skoog Svanberg, A., and Lampic, C. (2023). The motives and experiences of donorconceived persons requesting the identity of their sperm donors. Reproductive Biomedicine Online. 103413–103413.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2023.103413

IV. Widbom, A., Isaksson, S., Sydsjö, G., Svanberg, A. S., and Lampic, C. (2021). Positioning the donor in a new landscape-mothers’ and fathers’ experiences as their adult children obtained information about the identity-release sperm donor. Human Reproduction. (Oxford), 36(8), 2181–2188.
https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deab146