Objectives: This article deals with the place of adoption for couples involved in a medical help for procreation. The question is: do these couples wait for their gynaecologist's advice before beginning a procedure of adoption or do they launch such a procedure before?
Patients and methods: We have questioned 90 couples, on the first day of their treatment in our unity, about the place of adoption in their desire for a child. Are they in favour or against adoption? Have they already begun or not to think, to read, to make a decision about adoption?
Results: In this research, 49% of theses couples are not in favour of adoption, especially when they have already had children through medical help. 84.5% thought about adoption as soon as they received the announcement of the infertility. 69% have shown their interest in adoption by reading books, watching TV or by speaking with adoptive parents or adopted children. 29% have begun a procedure of adoption but only 18% really intend to adopt a child.
Discussion and conclusion: Most of the infertile couples do not wait for their clinician's advice to be interested in adoption. But they probably have to hear from their clinician that the treatments are definitively finished to become completely involved in the adoption process. Some of them will prefer to stay even so without children or to think about the gamete's donation.