Everyone heard about the insemination saga at Assuta Hospital and was shocked.

The failure raised many questions, some of them technical - to whom does the fetus belong, and what is done in such a case, and some of them emotional - the difficult upheaval that a family goes through whose world has been turned upside down, in a situation of fertilization that is already very complex from an emotional point of view.

The hospital itself also addressed the emotional aspect after the failure, noting that "the Ministry of Health is updated on all the processes with the patients... Assuta is sorry for the worry and emotional burden caused to the patients following the discovery, and is working with all its might to bring the tests to an end and create peace and certainty for all the patients."

A deep emotional upheaval

Let's start from the beginning.

A woman who has undergone a successful in vitro fertilization procedure, and is in an advanced pregnancy, probably feels a great sense of happiness.

Suddenly she undergoes a shock, and discovers that the fetus in her womb is not hers and her partner's.

What happens to her and the fetus in her womb in such a situation?

Pregnancy itself is a fascinating and visible physiological process, parallel to which a deep emotional process develops that is not always evident.

Every pregnancy is prone to psychological and biological crises and emotional upheavals, and certainly this complex story has an unimaginable emotional price.

The early attachment to the fetus

Studies show that attachment to the fetus exists already in the very early stages of pregnancy.

As the pregnancy progresses, the feeling of attachment increases and even fantasies, expectations, excitement, hope, plans for the future and maternal feelings appear. 

Who does the fetus belong to?

Pregnancy, photo: GettyImages

From the beginning of pregnancy, significant hormonal changes occur, such as an increase in the levels of oxytocin - the love hormone.

This happens mainly in the mother, and the father will also notice an increase.

A higher level of oxytocin during pregnancy and after birth predicts greater attachment to the fetus during the third trimester of pregnancy, as well as greater maternal behavior after birth.

Towards the end of pregnancy, the nesting instinct develops in most women, just like birds in the wild that prepare the nest before laying the eggs.

The expression of such an instinct is the natural urge to organize and arrange the house, prepare a room for the baby, clean, cook and bake.

The dramatic effect on the fetus

Embryos are creatures with human qualities, with thoughts, needs and character traits.

The placenta is not a barrier, but a kind of filter through which the fetus feels everything that its mother feels.

When the mother is stressed during pregnancy, the fetus feels and reacts to this stress, and this may have an impact on him for life, along with experiences that will affect him and his attachment patterns after birth.

Such emotional turmoil can have a dramatic effect on the emotional world of the fetus.

He too, in a parallel process, gets to know the world to which he arrives: he recognizes his mother's voice, the rhythm of her movement, he relaxes through her voice, which will be an anchor for him even in life outside the womb.

Already in the womb, the fetus begins to learn the external environment, and one must also think about it when making such fateful decisions, regarding its belonging to the biological mother or to the one who carries it in her womb.

Either way, every decision that is made will have consequences - for both families and for the embryo itself that will develop.

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