La loi française du 2 août 2021 a ouvert l’assistance médicale à la procréation aux couples de femmes et aux femmes non mariées. Cette ouverture transforme le cadre juridique de la reproduction mais ne garantit pas une reconnaissance sociale, clinique et institutionnelle immédiate des maternités solo.

L’étude examine comment des femmes cisgenres ayant eu recours à une PMA solo en France décrivent leur parcours, la reconnaissance de leur famille et les effets des normes conjugales, familiales et biparentales.

Les données proviennent d’une enquête en ligne plus large sur les configurations familiales contemporaines minorisées. Les analyses quantitatives et qualitatives portent sur 62 réponses complètes de femmes cisgenres ayant déclaré une PMA en France ou à l’étranger, dont un sous-groupe central de 53 femmes ayant réalisé une PMA solo en France avec grossesse personnelle. Les données quantitatives ont fait l’objet d’analyses descriptives et exploratoires ; les réponses ouvertes ont été analysées selon l’analyse thématique de Braun et Clarke.

L’échantillon est majoritairement composé de femmes de 25 à 44 ans, souvent diplômées, salariées ou indépendantes et résidentes en France métropolitaine. Les résultats quantitatifs montrent des niveaux élevés de pratiques normatives perçues, de stress de non-reconnaissance et d’insécurité juridique mais aussi des ressources organisationnelles, une cohésion familiale et un sentiment d’appartenance élevés. L’analyse qualitative dégage quatre thèmes : une liberté reproductive sous condition d’évaluation ; le corps reproductif, l’âge, les traitements, les fausses couches et le deuil non reconnu ; le père attendu et la matérialisation administrative du manque ; et les stratégies de protection narrative et relationnelle.

La PMA solo apparaît comme un analyseur des normes françaises de parenté. Les vulnérabilités décrites sont principalement associées aux interactions et aux dispositifs dans lesquels ces familles peuvent être perçues comme incomplètes. Ces résultats invitent à développer une clinique reproductive attentive à la reconnaissance familiale, au vécu corporel et au deuil périnatal.

The French Bioethics Law of August 2nd, 2021 opened access to medically assisted reproduction to female couples and unmarried women. This reform profoundly changed the legal framework of reproductive medicine by disconnecting access to assisted reproduction from the exclusive model of the infertile heterosexual couple. However, legal access does not automatically produce social, clinical, or institutional recognition of solo motherhood. In everyday interactions, medical encounters, administrative procedures, and school or psychological settings, families formed through solo assisted reproduction may still be evaluated in relation to conjugal, paternal, and biparental norms.

This study examines how cisgender women who used medically assisted reproduction in France or abroad describe their reproductive pathway, the recognition of their family, and the effects of conjugal, family, and biparental norms. The aim is to understand how some social, medical, psychological, and administrative contexts produce these families as incomplete or risky.

The data come from a broader French online survey on contemporary minoritized family configurations. The questionnaire included 190 questions, combining closed-ended items, multiple-choice items, Likert-type scales, and seven open-ended questions. The present analysis focuses on 62 complete responses from cisgender women who reported medically assisted reproduction in France or abroad, including a core subgroup of 53 women who reported solo medically assisted reproduction in France and personal pregnancy. Quantitative analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 31. Descriptive statistics, composite scores, exploratory subgroup comparisons, Mann-Whitney tests, mean differences, and Cohen's d were used because of unequal group sizes and presumed non-normal ordinal distributions. The qualitative corpus consisted of 434 open-ended responses. It was analyzed using NVivo Version 15.3.2 and a thematic analysis approach based on Braun and Clarke.

The sample was mostly composed of women aged 25 to 44, frequently with intermediate or high levels of education, mainly salaried or self-employed, and living in metropolitan France. The core subgroup of women who underwent solo assisted reproduction in France with personal pregnancy included a high proportion of single and heterosexual participants, while the small comparison group included proportionally more lesbian respondents and more partnered participants. Quantitative findings showed high levels of perceived normative practices, stress related to non-recognition, and legal insecurity. At the same time, participants reported high organizational resources, family cohesion, coping, and family belonging. This pattern supports a non-deficit interpretation. The vulnerability described by participants appears less linked to solo motherhood itself than to social and institutional contexts that question its legitimacy. Qualitative analysis generated four overarching themes. The first theme, reproductive freedom under conditions of evaluation, describes how access to assisted reproduction can be experienced as a right that must still be earned through psychological and relational self-presentation. The second theme concerns the reproductive body, age, medical treatments, miscarriage, and unacknowledged grief. Participants describe injections, repeated appointments, medical monitoring, treatment failures, miscarriages, and the difficulty of having their loss recognized as emotionally and familially meaningful. The third theme concerns the expected father, the donor, and the administrative materialization of lack. Participants report that the donor is often reinterpreted as a potential father, and that administrative documents, clinical questions, or school procedures may produce paternal absence as a deficit. The fourth theme concerns narrative and relational protection. Participants describe adapting their family story according to context, while relying on peers, associations, relatives, and affirming professionals to sustain family legitimacy.

Solo assisted reproduction functions here as an analyzer of persistent kinship norms in contemporary France. The findings invite a shift from the question of the “child without a father” to the analysis of the devices, interactions, and professional assumptions through which some families may be perceived as incomplete. Clinical practice should not aim to verify whether these women can compensate for the absence of a father or a second parent. Rather, reproductive and mental health care should recognize the actual organization of ties, support networks, family narratives, bodily experience, miscarriages, and perinatal grief. These results underline the need for non-judgmental, reflexive, and recognition-based care in assisted reproduction, perinatal care, pediatrics, mental health, schools, and administrative settings.