Acceptability of babies conceived through assisted reproductive technology among married women in University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, Nigeria

Abstract

Context: Infertility is a condition whereby a married woman is unable to get pregnant despite having frequent, unprotected sex for at least a year. This has been an area of medicine in which health care practitioners had limited means to help their patients. The landscape of this field changed dramatically with the announcement of birth through the use of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) by Louise Brown in 1978. This has given hope to millions of couples suffering from infertility; but it has also introduced countless social challenges like acceptability issues, which is a multi-faceted construct that reflects the extent to which people delivering or receiving intervention consider it to be appropriate. Acceptability of babies conceived through ART in developing countries is a major challenge to the effective use of ART among married women in the area. Aims: This study examined the acceptability of babies conceived through ART among women attending tertiary health facility. Setting and Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted on women who attended the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out among 348 women through a stratified probability sample technique, and a self-structured questionnaire with open-ended and Likert scale questions used as instrument was administered. Statistical Analysis Used: Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, means, standard deviation and Linear regression at 0.05 level of significance, through Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. Results: Acceptability of babies conceived through ART had a mean of 3.23 (1.025). The result also revealed through linear regression of the relationship between acceptability of babies conceived through ART and religion, level of education, and cultural background to be 0.333, >0.001, and >0.001, respectively. Conclusion: The acceptability of babies conceived through ART among the participants is very low. Therefore, government should do more on fertility public enlightenment, all training schools should include it in their curriculum, and royal fathers should be sensitized to keep everybody abreast with the right knowledge about ART babies.