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Maternal and Paternal Representations in Assisted Reproductive Technology and Spontaneous Conceiving Parents: A Longitudinal Study
- Source :
- Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 12 (2021), Frontiers in Psychology
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Frontiers Media S.A., 2021.
-
Abstract
- Aim of this study was to investigate whether parental mental representations during pregnancy and after delivery differed between parents who conceived after Assisted Reproductive Treatments (ART) and spontaneous conceiving (SC) parents. Effects of specific ART variables (previous ART attempts, treatment type and cause of infertility) were also taken into account. Seventeen ART couples and 25 SC couples were recruited at Santa Maria Nuova Hospital (Reggio Emilia, Italy). At both 32 weeks of gestation (T1) and 3 months postpartum (T2) participants completed the Semantic Differential of the IRMAG, a self-report tool which measures specific domains of mental representations pertaining either individual (Child, Self-as-woman/man, and Partner) or parental (Self-as-parent, Own parent) characteristics. Results showed that ART parents had significantly more positive representations of the child compared to SC parents, while the scores at Partner dimension improved from T1 to T2 for SC parents only. With regards to ART history, scores at the Self-as-woman/man dimension were significantly less positive for ICSI than IVF parents and improved substantially from T1 to T2 only in case of mothers with previous ART attempts and of fathers at the first ART cycle. The representation of own parents increased from T1 to T2 in case of infertility diagnosis due to male factors, while a decrease emerged when infertility was due to female factors. Findings suggest the need to investigate parental mental representations after ART, in order to improve the understanding on the transition to parenthood of infertile couples and to target more specific intervention for parenting support.
- Subjects :
- Infertility
Longitudinal study
assisted reproductive technology (ART)
medicine.medical_treatment
parental mental representations
lcsh:BF1-990
fathers
Developmental psychology
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Intervention (counseling)
medicine
father
Psychology
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
General Psychology
Pregnancy
030219 obstetrics & reproductive medicine
Assisted reproductive technology
05 social sciences
mother
longitudinal study
Brief Research Report
IVF (in vitro fertilization)
medicine.disease
ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection)
mothers
lcsh:Psychology
Mental representation
Gestation
Semantic differential
infertility
050104 developmental & child psychology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 16641078
- Volume :
- 12
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....e988d2fc94f204be72535053d0c1f2f7