DONOR INSEMINATION - DUTCH PARENTS OPINIONS ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY ANDDONOR ANONYMITY AND THE EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT OF THEIR CHILDREN

Results from a comparative study investigating 38 donor insemination ( DI) Dutch families with 4-8 year old children are presented, The aims of this study were to investigate parents' opinions on the issues of c onfidentiality and donor anonymity, to assess the emotional developmen t of the children, and to examine in DI families the association betwe en secrecy with regard to the use of a donor and the emotional adjustm ent of the children, The DI families were compared to families with a child conceived by in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and to families with a naturally conceived child, Secrecy appeared to be associated with DI and not with IVF: 74% of the DI parents intended not to inform the chi ld about the way in which she/he was conceived, whereas none of the IV F parents intended to keep the secret, Only one set of DI parents and two sets of IVF parents had actually told the child, As to donor anony mity, a spread of opinions appeared among DI parents; 57% preferred an anonymous donor, 31% would have liked non-identifying information abo ut the donor, 9% preferred the donor's identity to be registered and 3 % remained unsure, Parents' major concern was to know more about the m edical/genetic background of the donor, Mothers and fathers in the DI families differed in their opinions concerning the issues of confident iality and donor anonymity: fathers, more often than mothers, were sec retive with regard to the use of a donor and husbands, more often than their wives, were in favour of donor anonymity, With regard to the em otional development of the children, more emotional/behavioural proble ms were revealed among DI children than among children who were natura lly conceived. No association was found between secrecy and the emotio nal/behavioural adjustment of the children.