Parental adjustment and attitudes to parenting after in vitro fertilization

Objective: To examine the psychosocial and parenthood-specific adjustment a nd attitudes to parenting at 1 year postpartum of IVF parents. Design: Prospective, controlled study. Setting: Volunteers in a teaching hospital environment. Patient(s): Sixty-five primiparous women with singleton IVF pregnancies and their partners, and a control group of 61 similarly aged primiparous women with no history of infertility and their partners. Intervention(s): Completion of questionnaires and interviews. Main Outcome Measure(s): Parent reports of general and parenthood-specific adjustment and attitudes to parenting. Result(s): The IVF mothers tended to report lower self-esteem and less pare nting competence than control mothers. Although there were no group differe nces on protectiveness, IVF mothers saw their children as significantly mor e vulnerable and "special" compared with controls. The IVF fathers reported significantly lower self-esteem and marital satisfaction, although not les s competence in parenting. Both IVF mothers and fathers did not differ from control parents on other measures of general adjustment (mood) or those mo re specific to parenthood (e.g., attachment to the child and attitudes to c hild rearing). Conclusion(s): The IVF parents' adjustment to parenthood is similar to natu rally conceiving comparison families. Nonetheless, there are minor IVF diff erences that reflect heightened child-focused concern and less confidence i n parenting for mothers, less satisfaction with the marriage for the father s, and vulnerable self-esteem for both parents.(C) 2000 by American Society for Reproductive Medicine.