07.01.08

Tell children conceived from sperm donors as early as possible

A Cambridge University made a research to estimate at what age it is preferable to tell children that they are conceived from donor's sperm. A team studied 165 children conceived this way. All of the children were asked to fill in an online questionnaire.

The study is one of the first to compare the views of the offspring of donor insemination told of their origins during childhood with those who only found out in adulthood.

The study found that those not told until the age of 18 often felt shock and anger. \"Learning of my biological identity at 17 years of age was a traumatic event\", says one of the teenagers studied.

A UK patient group asks parents not to keep children's origin in secret from the start. But European reproductive health conference concluded that once a child finds out, he may want to find his biological parent.

If parents do it this way, there is no big revelation. It just becomes one of the things a child knows about itself.

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