Impact of childlessness on life and attitudes towards continuation of medically assisted reproduction and/or adoption

Abstract

Infertility and fertility treatment have the potential to impact and disrupt a couple's overall life. In order to study the associations between the impact of childlessness on one's life, and men and women's attitudes towards fertility treatment continuation and/or adoption, we analysed data from a one-year follow-up questionnaire in a prospective, longitudinal cohort study of consecutive couples initiating fertility treatment in Denmark. The study comprised 302 couples with no children at baseline and no joint children at one-year follow-up. In total, 71.9% of women and 72.5% of men reported that they wished to continue fertility treatment, while 20.2% of women and 19.2% of men reported that they wished to pursue adoption. The attitudes of nearly 8 in 10 couples were congruent towards further fertility treatments, while nearly 7 in 10 couples were congruent in their attitudes to pursuing adoption. Significantly more men who reported a lower impact of childlessness on their daily life wished to continue fertility treatment, compared with those reporting that childlessness had a greater impact on their life. Among women, significantly more were undecided about whether or not to pursue adoption when reporting a greater impact of childlessness on social life, compared with those reporting a lower impact of their childlessness.

Keywords::

• Adoption
• assisted reproductive technology
• decision-making
• family formation
• infertility

Acknowledgements

The Infertility Cohort is part of the COMPI Research Programme initiated by Dr. Lone Schmidt, University of Copenhagen, 2000. The Infertility Cohort is a collaboration between the public Fertility Clinics at Herlev University Hospital; The Juliane Marie Centre, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital; Odense University Hospital; and Regional Hospital in Horsens (former Brædstrup).

The present study of the Infertility Cohort is part of the project on ‘Family histories and establishing of daily life after fertility treatment’, which has received support from the Danish Council for Independent Research │ Social Sciences (j.nr. 09-068855). The project is conducted in co-operation between Aalborg University and University of Copenhagen. Further, the COMPI study has received support from the Danish Health Insurance Fund (J.nr. 11/097-97), the Else and Mogens Wedell-Wedellsborg's Fund, the manager E. Danielsen and Wife's Fund, the merchant L.F. Foght's Fund, the Jacob Madsen and Wife Olga Madsen's Fund, and the Engineer K.A. Rohde and Wife's Fund.

Declaration of interests: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.