NEW REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY AND THE FAMILY - THE PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP FOLLOWING IN-VITRO FERTILIZATION

Parent-child relationships and the parents' psychosocial functioning w ere assessed in families with a 24-30-month-old, single born child con ceived by homologous in vitro fertilization (IVF) and in a control gro up of families with a naturally conceived child. The investigation inc luded behavioural observations of mother-child interactions in the hom e, and self-rated questionnaires. No significant multivariate group ef fects were found for indicators of the parent-child relationship, nor for the parents' psychosocial functioning. However, in the case of IVF the employment status of the mother tvas associated with her behaviou r towards her child: employed IVF-mothers showed less respect for thei r child's autonomy compared with both nonemployed IVF-mothers and empl oyed control mothers.