Shared biological motherhood: Parent-child relationships and child adjustment in lesbian mother families formed through partner-donated eggs

The growth of assisted reproductive technologies in the 1980s resulted in donor insemination becoming a new route to parenthood for lesbian women. In these lesbian mother families, the mother who becomes pregnant has a biological connection to the child whereas the other mother does not. In 2010, lesbian couples began to have children through shared biological parenting whereby one woman's egg is used to create an embryo with donated sperm and the other woman undergoes the pregnancy, a procedure that enables both mothers to have a biological connection to their child. The mother who provides the egg has a genetic connection whereas the mother who hosts the pregnancy has a gestational connection. The aim of the proposed research is to conduct the first study worldwide of mother-child relationships and the psychological adjustment of children born through shared biological motherhood. The study will provide empirical data on the outcomes for parents and children in families formed in this novel way. The study will also provide an opportunity to examine the relative importance of genetic and gestational relatedness between children and their mothers in the development of secure attachment relationships. The over-arching research question that the study will address is whether a genetic or a gestational connection is more important for maternal bonding and for the development of secure attachment relationships between children and their mothers. The study will also examine whether shared biological motherhood results in more positive maternal psychological well-being, more positive partner relationships and more positive child adjustment compared to lesbian mother families formed by donor insemination in which only one mother is biologically related to the child. Fifty lesbian mother families created through shared motherhood will be compared to 50 lesbian mother families formed through donor insemination (with a biological and a social mother) and 50 heterosexual mother families formed through IVF to provide a comparison group of mothers from traditional families controlling for the use of assisted conception and the presence of two parents. The children will be aged between 3-6 years. Parents' psychological well-being and relationships will be assessed using the Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Edinburgh Depression Scale, the Parenting Stress Index and the Golombok Rust Inventory of Marital State to assess anxiety, depression, parenting stress and relationship satisfaction, respectively. Each parent will also complete the Parenting Alliance Inventory to assess commitment and cooperation in child-rearing, and the Who Does What Questionnaire to provide an assessment of how parents divide child-related tasks. Social support will be measured using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and lesbian mothers' experiences of discrimination, rejection and victimisation, as well as pride and community connectedness, will be measured using an adaptation of the Gender Minority Stress and Resilience Measure. The quality of parent-child relationships will be assessed using the Parent Development Interview and an observational assessment of parent-child interaction. A qualitative section will be included in the interview focusing on parents' motivations, lived experiences, feelings and expectations regarding their chosen route to parenthood. The children will be interviewed using the Berkeley Puppet Interview to assess their perceptions of their relationships with their parents, and the MacArthur Story Stem Battery to assess security of attachment. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire will be completed by parents and teachers to assess children's psychological adjustment. The data will be analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods.

The proposed research on shared biological motherhood will benefit: (i) parents and children in families formed through this new pathway to parenthood (ii) the clinicians who treat lesbian couples who wish to start a family (iii) policy-makers, and (iv) the public.

(i) Parents and children: Each new family form made possible through advances in reproductive technology and/or shifts in social attitudes raises new concerns regarding the potentially negative consequences for children. These concerns often arise from the widely-held assumption that the traditional family, comprising two heterosexual parents who are biologically related to their children, is the optimum environment in which to rear children, and that the greater the deviation from the traditional family, the more damaging the outcomes for children's psychological well-being. The proposed research will increase understanding of the social and psychological consequences for children of growing up in this emerging family form that differs not only from the traditional family in that there are two mothers but also from other kinds of lesbian mother family in that both mothers have a biological connection to the children. Thus the study will provide empirical evidence on the actual consequences - good, bad or neutral - for mothers and children, including the difficulties they may experience, and the implications for parents of forming families in this way.

(ii) Clinicians: Clinicians and counsellors in fertility clinics are beginning to offer shared biological motherhood to lesbian couples in the absence of any knowledge about the consequences of this newly emerging family form for parenting or child development. The findings of the proposed study will enable clinicians and counsellors to discuss the implications of shared biological motherhood in a more informed way. For example, clinicians and counsellors tend to counsel potential recipients of egg donation that bonding is primarily gestational rather than genetic. The proposed study will clarify that idea.

(iii) Policy-makers: The successful regulation of assisted reproduction is dependent upon evidence on the consequences of advances in reproductive technologies for the families they help to create. The proposed study will be the first world-wide to investigate the functioning of families formed through shared biological motherhood. The findings will thus be of interest to regulatory bodies internationally.

(iv) The public: In this emotive area of family life on which people often hold strong opinions, an important aim of the proposed research is to increase public understanding of diversity in family life, reduce prejudice and discrimination against families that differ from the norm, and improve the lives of the children who grow up in them.