Beyond the disclosure debate in donor-conception: how do we help families to discuss origin stories with their children?

Abstract

Families have been subject to enormous transformations with the emergence of artificial reproductive technology and the appearance of donor-conceived children. These new families are challenged to disclose origins with their children and parents feel concern that conception stories might have an emotional impact on their children. Fertility counsellors still feel ill-equipped on what to recommend to parents because developmental psychology has not designed systematic evidence-based guidelines to address a three-dimensional matter: 'what', 'when', and 'how' to discuss conception stories. The argument developed herein is that professionals working with families in fertility clinics, could benefit from understanding these new family conversational processes of origin storytelling from these three perspectives, not only on 'what' and 'when' but also on the less elaborated 'how' to talk about it. For this purpose, understanding elaborative reminiscing as a specific way of talking about the past that helps children to build autobiographical memories and develop their identity might be key.