Behaviour nurture not nature, says IVF children study

A long-term study following 1,000 families with children born using IVF between 1994 and 2002 in the UK and US has shown the importance of parenting in the outcome of a child's behaviour.

In the study, which investigated the mental wellbeing of both the parents and children, some of the children were biologically related to their parents, while others were unrelated and conceived using either donor sperm or eggs, or both. This gave the researchers a unique opportunity to compare the role of nature (genes) and nurture (the environment) in the development of a child's behaviour.

This is why patients who use donor gametes for IVF after counselling and forethought are usually very happy with their kids !