Poikkeus et al. (2006) compared the prevalence of severe fear of
childbirth in groups of pregnant women with singleton pregnancies
who had conceived with ART and spontaneously. They
found that the prevalence of severe anticipatory anxiety was
_10%, irrespective of mode of conception and that nulliparous
women in both groups were more likely than parous women to
report severe fear of childbirth. After the birth, the ART group
was more likely than the SC group to report having had an operative
birth and less likely to report recalling a ‘pleasant birth
experience’ (Repokari et al., 2006).