Morning Symposium - Mental Health Professional Group - Making Babies, Raising Babies: A Collaborative Approach to Ensuring Children’s Well-Being

Presenters

Making Babies, Raising Babies: A Collaborative Approach to Ensuring Children’s Well-Being

Needs Assessment and Description
Egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation and gestational surrogacy are forms of alternative family building that originate in medical offices and make doctors, nurses and third-party coordinators the first responders to their patients’ complex questions about the psychological issues involved in having children with the assistance of donors and surrogates. These intended parents receive optimal care and guidance navigating this new approach to family building when medical and mental health professionals work together to provide comprehensive information about donor-conceived families. Clinical and research findings on third-party families form the base of the collaborative model that will be presented in this live course for healthcare professionals involved in assisted reproduction.

Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this session, participants should be able to: 

1. Describe a collaborative medical/psychological model for assisting families and facilitating donor-conceived children’s future well-being. 
2. Identify the psychological developmental tasks of children conceived with the assistance of third parties and discuss how to use the concept of the “family circle” in counseling families. 
3. Summarize research findings about parents and children in egg donation, donor insemination, embryo donation and surrogacy families.

ACGME Competency
Interpersonal Communication

TEST QUESTION:
After participating in this session, I will do the following in my practice: 

1. Not recommend or require that patients using third-party reproduction meet with a mental health professional to discuss the psychological issues associated with alternative family building prior to commencing with medical interventions. 
2. Recommend patients using third-party reproduction meet with a mental health professional to discuss the psychological issues associated with alternative family building prior to commencing with medical interventions. 
3. Require patients using third-party reproduction meet with a mental health professional to discuss the psychological issues associated with alternative family building prior to commencing with medical interventions. 
4. Discuss with patients the emotional issues associated with infertility and the transition to alternative family building, acknowledge the complex psychological issues associated with disclosure and anonymous donations for parents and donor-conceived children.
5. Not applicable to my area of practice.