Professor Susan Golombok:

Certainly one thing we find in our studies of surrogacy, but also children born through gamete donation, is that the earlier that parents begin to talk to them about their origins and how they came to be, the more positive the outcomes are for the children, adolescents and, later, adults. The age at which this begins to happen seems to be very crucial, both from some of the work I have talked about today, but also other studies we have carried out and other colleagues have carried out in the United States as well. With surrogacy, this is much less of an issue because surrogacy, unlike gamete donation, cannot be hidden. Parents are much more open because everybody usually knows that because there was no pregnancy, this is how the child was born. This is much less of an issue for children born through surrogacy. However, of course, if the surrogate egg is used and the surrogate is the genetic mother of the child, then sometimes parents are not so open. We found in our studies that parents had talked to their children about surrogacy but not about the fact that the surrogate’s egg had been used in their conception.

In terms of how to do it, certainly one thing we found is that parents were very concerned about talking to their children. However, those who did so told us that in fact their concerns were unfounded because the children either were not very interested or were curious to know more, but they did not become distressed on hearing this information when they were young. In contrast, we have heard more anecdotally, but also later in our follow-up study, that it is when children find out by accident or under negative circumstances perhaps, such as parents' divorce, that this can have a much more adverse effect on children's and young people’s identity and well-being.