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Forceful survivorship: The desire to procreate in parents of cancer patients

Annarita Adduci1, Giovanna Sironi1, Andrea Ferrari1,2

  • 1Pediatric Oncology Unit, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy.

Tumori
|February 9, 2026
PubMed

Our study evaluated the desire to procreate of 96 mothers of children treated for cancer at the Pediatric Oncology Unit of Istituto Nazionale Tumori of Milan in 2021. Even at a time during which they fear losing the child they already have, nearly one in four mothers expressed their desire to have another child.This wish emerged within a complex interplay of individual, relational, and sociocultural factors. Notably, cultural expectations surrounding motherhood, self-sacrifice, and the ideal of the "good mother" appeared to intensify feelings of guilt associated with procreative desire in the context of anticipatory grief. Future cross-cultural investigations could clarify how norms regarding motherhood and reproductive choices differ across societies and influence this phenomenon.Our results also showed a relation between mother's age, children's age, stage of disease and presence of siblings: procreative desire was mainly expressed by younger mothers with only one child, in preschool age and with a bad prognosis.

Keywords:
parentspediatric cancerprocreative desiresiblings

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