Disclosure decisions among known and anonymous oocyte donation recipients

Objective The purpose of this study was to compare anonymous and known donor mothers' demographics, knowledge about the donor, and disclosure attitudes. Design Cross-sectional survey of oocyte donation parents. Setting Academic medical centers. Patient(s) Women having a child through oocyte donation in the past 12 years. Intervention(s) Subjects completed a survey regarding their oocyte donation experience. Main outcome measure(s) Donor characteristics and disclosure behavior. Result(s) Questionnaires were sent to 524 individuals (262 couples); 157 (92 women and 65 men) were returned yielding a response rate of 31.4% (157/500). The average age of the women was 44.7 years and the average age of the child was 2.89 years. Seventy women used anonymous donors and 20 women used known donors. Significantly more known recipients knew their donors' religion, number of children, hobbies, profession, and photograph. Eighty percent of both groups told others about using a donor to conceive. Regarding telling the child, there were also no significant differences with approximately 10% who have told, 49% plan to tell, 31% are not telling, and 10% are unsure. Conclusion(s) Contrary to conventional wisdom we found no differences in plans to inform the child based on the use of a known or an anonymous donor.