Maternity through the eyes of (in)fertility – advantages, disadvantages, conditions underlying the decision to have a child – a comparative study
Florentina-Larisa Foti, Adina Karner-Huțuleac
The main objective of this paper, which is part of a larger study, was to assess whether there is a difference in women’s perception of the advantages, disadvantages, conditions underlying the decision to have a child, depending on the ability to conceive children naturally. The data were collected through Google Forms, with the participation of 189 woman (95 infertile and 94 fertile). After informed consent was obtained, women were asked to fill up a drown up questionnaire. The results revealed a significant difference between the two groups in all three aspects. The decision to procreate is conditioned by many more aspects among fertile women than infertile ones, whether they are mothers or not. Among conditions, we mention: being able to combine work and family life (U = 3464, p = .006), the possibility to benefit from maternity/child care leave (U = 3254.5, p = .001), traveling or doing things that with a child is less likely to do (U = 1189, p = 0.025) and achieving career goals (U = 3303, p = 001). In terms of advantages, infertile women attributed benefits such as personal fulfillment (U = 3607.5, p = .012), finding meaning in life (U = 3521, p = .009), own happiness (U = 3557, p = .009) and couple happiness (U = 3498, p = .007) to a greater extent compared to the other group. Regarding the disadvantages, fertile ones attributed to motherhood significantly more disadvantages (8 out of 10 items) than infertile women. The extreme desire of motherhood, in any circumstances, among infertile women is underlined by our results. It seems that this role has significantly less disadvantages for them, compared to fertile women. Even if maternity seems to be extremely important through the eyes of infertile women, childbearing is conditioned by many facts as our study showed. Because of these, it is essential to raise public awareness of the impact of delayed motherhood on reproductive outcome, of assisted human reproduction technologies and of the advantages and disadvantages of motherhood. This way, women can better prioritize aspects of their lives and make well-informed decisions about motherhood.
Female Infertility, Motherhood advantages disadvantages, Conditions to parenthood
Florentina-Larisa Foti – Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Romania, E-mail: larisa.foti@gmail.com
Adina Karner-Huțuleac – Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Romania
