Prenatal Attachment in Pregnant Women Treated with Assisted Reproductive Techniques: A Systematic Literature Review

Background: It is recognized that pregnancy after assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) affects couples’ emotional well-being. This paper aimed to review the literature on fetal attachment in women treated with ARTs. Study design: A systematic search of the electronic databases was conducted and all observational studies from 1990 to July 2017 were included. In this review, key words Assisted reproductive technology , In vitro fertilization , prenatal attachment and Emotional adjustment were searched inEMbase, MEDLINE/PUBMED, ISI Web of Science, CINAHL and PsycINFO and the Google scholar search engine. A total of ten articles related to fetal attachment in pregnant women treated with ARTs met the study inclusion criteria. Findings: Feto-maternal attachment was identified to be increased with the progression of pregnancy after ARTs. In general, despite the gestational age, in pregnant women treated with ARTs, the level of attachment to the fetus was either similar to or greater than the attachment in naturally pregnant women. Conclusion: Regardless of good fetal attachment in pregnant women after ARTs, clinical guidelines in prenatal care should consider fetal-maternalattachment during pregnancy particularly in vulnerable pregnancies including ARTs-treated pregnancy.

Keywords:

Pregnancy , Assisted Reproductive Technology , Prenatal attachment