Family ties: desire outweighs DNA.

A scientific dispatch from the brave new world of reproductive technologies contains encouraging news about family life. The quality of parenting in families with a child conceived through in vitro fertilization (IVF) or donor insemination (DI) exceeds that observed in well-functioning families with a naturally conceived child, a team of British psychologists reports in the April Child Development.

What's more, adoptive parents display child-rearing skills equal to those of parents of children conceived with medical help, say Susan Golombok and her coworkers at City University, London. "The findings suggest that genetic ties are less important for family functioning than a strong desire for parenthood," the researchers conclude.

Participating families consisted of 41 with an IVF child, 45 with a DI child, 43 with a naturally conceived child, and 55 with a child adopted at birth. Children ranged from 4 years to 8 years.

Parents completed interviews and questionnaires that assessed their child-rearing ability. The children's emotional health was determined by mother and teacher ratings and by the youngsters' descriptions of parent and peer relationships.

Concerns that DI fathers might have trouble relating to their children appear unfounded, Golombok's team contends. However, DI parents uniformly declined to tell their children about their reproductive origins, mainly for fear of inciting the child's anger and rejection. Future research will chart the consequences of telling or not telling children about how they were conceived, the researchers say.