Prenatal attachment in pregnancy following assisted reproductive technology: a literature review

ABSTRACT

Objective: To summarise the literature on prenatal attachment in pregnancies following Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).

Background: Prenatal attachment can predict the quality of the postpartum parent–infant relationship and is linked to perinatal mental health of the parents and their adjustment to the parental role. It might be expected prenatal attachment will be influenced by fertility treatment such as ART, but there are contradictory results.

Methods: In this review, studies with a cross-sectional and longitudinal design, published in 1990–2019 were included. A search was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science and Scopus, and using the Google Scholar search engine. A total of 17 articles were found which met the inclusion criteria and after these articles were reviewed using the STROBE-checklist, 15 articles were included in the study.

Results: In most couples who conceived following ART, the level of prenatal attachment was either similar to or higher than in couples who conceive without ART.

Conclusions: The findings challenge the idea that infertility problems affect attachment in pregnancies following ART. However, ART- couples may be more susceptible to anxiety due to pregnancy loss and support may be better focused on the pregnancy-related anxiety in these couples rather than any attachment intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• bonding
• relationship
• assisted reproductive technology
• In vitro fertilisation

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge Dr Helen Allan and Dr Esther Crespo for their assistance and contributions to this work.

Authors’ contributions

FR conceptualized the study and prepared the draft proposal. FR and MG conducted the searches and selected the studies together and abstracted the data independently. Disagreements between FR and MG resolved through discussion with CW who had experience in this field. All authors contributed to the reviewed draft version of the manuscript and approved the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has not been funded.