Confier un enfant à l'adoption versus choisir de l'élever soi-même
Si vous agissez
Renoncement / placement en adoption
38%
Si vous n’agissez pas
Élever l'enfant
8,0%
Pourcentage de personnes qui regrettent ensuite chaque choix. Les barres et le registre complet s’affichent ci-dessous.
Famille
Dernière révision 2026-05-02
Qualité des preuves 4.25/5
Score d’évaluation en huit dimensions selon la
grille de qualité
. Chaque dimension notée de 1 à 5.
D1 Vérification des sources
5/5
D2 Autorité et indépendance des sources
4/5
D3 Précision du taux de regret
3/5
D4 Comparabilité des sources
3/5
D5 Motif de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Qualité de la prose
5/5
D7 Complétude des réserves
5/5
D8 Qualité de l’échantillon
4/5
Moyenne4.25/5
Regret d'action
Renoncement / placement en adoption
38%
38% des mères biologiques rapportent un deuil substantiel à 6 mois post-placement (proxy de deuil)
Jeunes mères biologiques ayant placé des nourrissons pour adoption à travers 30 résidences de maternité et agences dans 13 États américains
6 mois post-placement
Regret d'inaction
Élever l'enfant
8,0%
~7-8% des parents rapportent regretter d'avoir des enfants (regret parental général, meilleur proxy disponible)
Parents américains et allemands, enquêtes de population (proxy — aucune étude n'a directement sondé les parents qui ont envisagé la renonciation et choisi d'élever)
Transversale ; enquêtes menées parmi des adultes américains ≥45 et allemands ≥18
% regrettent ce choix
Renoncement / placement en adoptionÉlever l'enfant
38%8,0%
action dominates — L'action domine — la plupart regrettent d'avoir agi.
Décisions associées
Décisions sémantiquement similaires — même terrain, compromis différents.
38% of birth mothers who place an infant for adoption report substantial grief at 6 months post-placement — roughly five times the rate of general parental regret among those who raise their children. Cushman, Kalmuss & Namerow (1993) documented this figure in a multistate US sample of 215 young birth mothers across 30 agencies in 13 states; a further 27% reported “some” grief at the same timepoint. Madden et al. (2018) — the most contemporary study, n=223 US birth mothers surveyed across placements made between 1993 and 2018 — found a mean satisfaction with relinquishment score of 3.11 on a five-point scale, sitting just above the midpoint, with satisfaction declining further the more years had elapsed since placement. Two variables predicted higher satisfaction: current contact with the adopted child and full-time employment, neither of which is universally available. A 1982 clinical study by Rynearson, drawn from a small psychiatric sample (n=20), documented that only 30% of relinquishing mothers expressed comfort with the adoption; the broader literature review by Askren and Bloom (1999) identified chronic grief as a recurring theme across studies from 1978 through 1994.
The inaction side — what happens to parents who considered relinquishment and chose instead to raise the child — has almost no dedicated evidence. The best available proxy is general population surveys of parental regret: Piotrowski (2021, PLOS ONE), synthesizing US and German survey data, estimates that roughly 7–8% of parents would choose not to have children if they could decide again. The Turnaway Study provides a narrower analogue — women denied abortion who parented reported only 4% regret at five years — though those women sought abortions rather than adoption placements, limiting comparability. Neither figure captures the specific subgroup of birth parents who weighed placement and then chose to parent; that population has not been surveyed directly.
The asymmetry supports an action-dominates pattern, consistent with Gilovich and Medvec’s framework: the active choice to relinquish generates measurable, persistent grief and dissatisfaction in a substantial minority, while raising a child — even an unintended one — tends toward adaptation and acceptance over time. The long time horizon matters: relinquishment grief is not typically acute and resolved, but often delayed and chronic, with Madden et al. finding dissatisfaction intensifying rather than fading with years. The structural confounders are substantial. Coercion history and adoption openness interact powerfully with outcomes; contemporary voluntary open adoptions with ongoing contact produce substantially better results than the closed adoptions that dominated the 1993 cohort. The 0.38 rate should be read as applicable to the mixed-era, mixed-openness population from which it was drawn; the true rate for contemporary voluntary open-adoption placements is almost certainly lower.
Sources : action
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
[1]Social Work / Cushman, Kalmuss & Namerow — Placing an Infant for Adoption: The Experiences of Young Birth Mothers
Revue par les pairs
38% of birth mothers felt 'a lot of grief' at 6 months post-placement; 27% felt 'some' grief (n=215, multistate US)
Extrait
“"At 6 months after placement, 38% of the placer sample reported feeling a lot of grief, and 27% reported feeling some grief. Higher levels of grief were found in birth mothers whose babies went to foster placement prior to adoptive placement. The majority of birth mothers found signing the adoption papers to be one of the most difficult parts of the adoption process."
”
Données source de
1993-05-01
Consulté le
2026-05-02
Calcul
Cushman, Kalmuss & Namerow (1993) interviewed 215 young women who placed infants through 30 maternity residences and agencies in 13 states — the largest contemporary US multistate birth-mother sample at time of publication. At 6 months post-placement, 38% reported "a lot of grief" and 27% "some grief," making the total experiencing significant grief 65%. We use the "a lot of grief" binary (38%) as the action-side rate because it most closely tracks persistent distress rather than transient sadness. The 6-month timeframe may underestimate lifetime rates: Madden et al. (2018) found satisfaction declined further over time, and the broader chronic-grief literature (Askren & Bloom 1999 review) identifies enduring grief in 40–50% of birth mothers across studies. The grief construct is a proxy for regret; grief and satisfaction are empirically distinct but correlated in this population.
[2]Families in Society / Madden, Ryan, Aguiniga, Killian & Romanchik — The Relationship Between Time and Birth Mother Satisfaction With Relinquishment
Revue par les pairs
Mean satisfaction with relinquishment score 3.11 on a 1–5 scale; satisfaction declined with time since placement (n=223 US birth mothers)
Extrait
“"On a scale of 1 to 5, participants reported a mean satisfaction with relinquishment score of 3.11. Time since relinquishment, age of the respondent, education level, and income had a significant inverse relationship with birth mothers' satisfaction to place their child for adoption. The more time that has passed since the birth mothers placed their child, the less overall satisfaction some birth mothers felt."
”
Données source de
2018-06-01
Consulté le
2026-05-02
Calcul
Madden et al. (2018) surveyed 223 contemporary US birth mothers who placed an infant in the prior 25 years; n=223 is the anchor for the secondary source. The mean satisfaction score of 3.11/5 and its inverse relationship with time corroborate that the 38% acute grief rate from Cushman 1993 persists and may intensify long-term. This study does not publish a binary regret rate but confirms the direction. Two predictors of higher satisfaction — current contact with the adopted child and full-time employment — were present in only a subset of respondents, suggesting 38% is a conservative estimate for the broader birth-mother population.
Sources : inaction
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
[1]PLOS ONE / Piotrowski — How many parents regret having children and how it is linked to their personality and health: Two studies with national samples in Poland
Revue par les pairs
7–8% of parents in US and German population surveys reported regretting having children
Extrait
“"On the basis of the surveys conducted in the US and in Germany, it was assumed that the percentage of parents regretting having a child could be around 7–8%."
”
Données source de
2021-07-22
Consulté le
2026-05-02
Calcul
Piotrowski (2021) synthesizes prior US and German survey evidence arriving at a 7–8% prevalence of parental regret in general population samples. This is an imperfect proxy for the inaction side: it measures regret among all parents, not among the specific subgroup who weighed relinquishment and chose to parent. No peer- reviewed study has measured regret among birth parents who considered and declined adoption. The Turnaway Study (Foster et al. 2020) is cited as a partial analogue — 4% of women denied abortion who carried to term expressed regret at 5 years — but those women sought abortions, not adoption placements. We use 0.08 (midpoint of the 7–8% range) as the primary inaction rate. The true rate for parents who specifically considered adoption before choosing to parent has not been measured; it may exceed 8% if their circumstances (ambivalence, resource constraints, social pressure) differ systematically from the general population.
[2]ANSIRH / University of California, San Francisco — The Turnaway Study↗ 1 other entry
Étude primaire
By 5 years after being denied an abortion, 96% of women who carried to term indicated they were glad they had kept their pregnancies (4% regret)
Extrait
“"By five years after being denied an abortion, 96% of women turned away indicated they were glad they had kept their pregnancies. One week after being turned away, 60% of the women expressed happiness over their pregnancies. Right after the baby was born, 88% of women no longer wished they had had an abortion."
”
Données source de
2022-06-15
Consulté le
2026-05-02
Calcul
The Turnaway Study followed ~1,000 women at 30 US facilities; the turnaway subgroup (~231 denied abortion) forms the relevant comparison. Only ~9% of turnaways pursued adoption; the majority parented. The 4% regret figure at 5 years is the lowest bound for the inaction side, but these women sought abortion — not adoption — so the comparator is imprecise. We cite Turnaway as a corroborating floor showing similarly low inaction regret and use the Piotrowski 7–8% as primary.
Réserves
Les preuves sur les deux côtés sont profondément asymétriques. Le côté action (renonciation) a une littérature dédiée s'étendant sur 40+ ans, avec une documentation cohérente du deuil, de la perte et de la satisfaction réduite à travers plusieurs pays et conceptions d'étude. Le côté inaction (élever un enfant qu'on a envisagé de céder) n'a presque aucune littérature dédiée : aucune étude évaluée par les pairs n'a directement mesuré le regret parmi les femmes qui ont pesé l'adoption et choisi d'élever à la place. Le taux d'inaction de 0,08 est emprunté aux enquêtes de regret parental de population générale (Piotrowski 2021), dont la plupart n'ont jamais envisagé l'adoption du tout. Le Turnaway Study fournit un analogue partiel (femmes refusées d'avortement qui ont élevé), mais ces femmes cherchaient un avortement, pas une adoption, et les contextes diffèrent matériellement. Le taux côté action (0,38) est le chiffre directement rapporté « beaucoup de deuil » de Cushman, Kalmuss & Namerow (1993), un échantillon multi-États américains de 215 mères biologiques à 6 mois post-placement. Le deuil est un proxy pour le regret, pas le regret lui-même ; les deux constructions sont empiriquement liées mais distinctes. Madden et al. (2018) ont trouvé une satisfaction déclinant davantage avec le temps, suggérant que 0,38 est un plancher plutôt qu'un plafond pour l'insatisfaction à vie. Rynearson (1982) a trouvé 70% d'inconfort dans un petit échantillon psychiatrique ambulatoire (n=20) ; ce chiffre n'est pas utilisé comme le taux en raison du biais de sélection sévère, mais il corrobore que le deuil persistant dans cette population est bien documenté. Trois facteurs de confusion structurels dominent cette comparaison. Premièrement, l'historique de coercition : beaucoup de mères biologiques — particulièrement celles qui ont placé avant les années 1990 — rapportent ressentir une pression de la famille ou des agences ; la coercition est le prédicteur le plus fort de mauvais résultats, donc les études historiques surestiment le regret par rapport aux placements volontaires d'aujourd'hui. Deuxièmement, l'ouverture de l'adoption : les adoptions ouvertes contemporaines avec contact continu produisent des résultats substantiellement meilleurs que les adoptions fermées (Cushman et al. 1997 ; Madden et al. 2018) ; le chiffre 0,38 dérive d'une ère où l'adoption ouverte était moins courante. Troisièmement, l'étude longitudinale de Namerow et al. de mères adolescentes a trouvé que les parents rapportaient un regret plus élevé à 4 ans que les renonçants — une conclusion qui soutiendrait inaction_dominates — mais c'était une cohorte de grossesse adolescente et n'a pas été répliquée dans des échantillons adultes contemporains. La renonciation safe-haven (abandon anonyme de nouveau-né) est une voie distincte, rarement étudiée non capturée dans aucune de ces données.
