Deciding the fate of supernumerary frozen embryos: parents' choices

Abstract

Embryo cryopreservation is a routine procedure in assisted reproductive technologies. Although couples have been informed about all potential procedures, some of them face the dilemma of what to do with surplus frozen embryos. The purpose of this qualitative study was to evaluate the attitude of patients toward their surplus cryopreserved embryos. Fifty patients who had undergone successful IVF cycles, and had surplus embryos cryopreserved were selected from a clinical database. We could contact twenty two patients agreed to participate in the study and responded the interview. Seventeen participants (77.3%) believed that cryostoraged embryos were ‘life’. Patients who would discard embryos rather than donate to research expressed their concern about the misuse of embryos. Those who would discard rather than donate to other couples considered that donating an embryo would be like giving away a child. Seven patients were unsure whether life had begun at this stage of development. Although some couples thought of their embryos as little more than biological material, others envisioned them as living entities or ‘virtual’ children. The decisions on whether to donate embryos to another couple, or discard them were coloured by strong values about human life and equated with child abandonment.

Keywords:

• Assisted reproduction
• counseling
• psychology
• embryo cryopreservation

Acknowledgments

Rose Maria Massaro Melamed was involved in study conception, design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data. Tatiana Carvalho de Sousa Bonetti and Daniela Paes de Almeida Ferreira Braga were involved in the analysis, interpretation of data, drafting the article and revising it critically for intellectual content. Camila Madaschi was involved in drafting the article. Assumpto Iaconelli Jr. was involved in the final approval of the version to be published. Finally, Edson Borges Jr. was involved in revising the article critically for intellectual content and for final approval.