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.
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