Surrogacy term is derived from the Latin word “Surrogates”, which means a substitute (appointment of an individual in replacing another).
In surrogacy medical practice, the surrogate carries the fetus for the intended mother with the intention that relinquishing the child after delivery.
In general, surrogacy is an accumulation of medical science with the social acceptance that provides mutual benefits to both surrogate and intended parents.
Surrogacy practice offers a realistic outcome and is considered a win-win situation for both the infertile couple and the surrogate mother.
The infertile couple can accomplish their desire and the surrogate mother gets the appropriate reward.
But surrogacy is not legally acceptable for every country.
Social stigma is another challenge for surrogacy acceptance. In surrogacy, a common concept is renting of a womb.
But in another way, we can think of hiring a womb to nurture the fertilized egg of another couple and give birth to the child with a specific intention of a surrogate that may either monetary benefits or other services or simply because of altruistic reasons.
The new medical technologies related to infertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), and also surrogacy are collectively known as Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
However, surrogacy is considered the last option in medical science because of some clinical risks as any other pregnancy is also associated with surrogacy pregnancies.
Therefore, the surrogate experiences all the symptoms of pregnancy including nausea from morning sickness, gaining weight, inflammatory condition, pain in the back, heartburn, and other associated side effects.
Apart from these, more serious side effects during the pregnancy include hypertension, gestational surrogacy, and potential damage of reproductive organs that may impact the post-pregnancy health of a surrogate.
In surrogacy, some more risks like miscarriage or preterm labor cannot also be ignored.
Gestational surrogacy has some additional medical risks associated with IVF treatments.
In IVF treatment, fertility medicines are injected into the surrogate that may cause simple needle bruising to temporary allergic reactions.
These medications lead to regulating the menstrual cycle and increase the scope of becoming pregnant.
But during this treatment phase, surrogates often experience pre-menstrual syndromes like headaches or mood swings.
Embryo transfer-related risks like slight cramping or bleeding from the procedure and rare occurrence of infection are also medical concerns.
Therefore, it is always important to stay in touch with your doctor to treat the condition.
In surrogacy, carrying multiple babies can also cause some health risks like preterm labor, low birth weight for the babies.
Similarly, surrogates may also face placental abruption and the potential for a Cesarean section because of the carrying of multiple babies.
The Surrogate needs to follow additional medical instructions during her day-to-day life in case of carrying multiple babies.
All these medical risks surrogate takes because of carrying child/children for others is somewhere clinically unjustified.
However, these risks can be reduced by following all the medical instructions given by the doctor such as taking prescribed medication, adequate amount of rest, and attending all follow-up visits, and close contact with the healthcare team.
The uniqueness of surrogacy causes surrogate mothers to face a variety of challenges like ethical misperception, psychological trouble, and reproductive health matters.
All these difficulties can be solved by developing a reproductive and sexual health care program meeting the needs of surrogate mothers and are by the cultural conditions of the research community, ultimately leading to improvement in reproductive and sexual health of surrogate mothers.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4345743/
Ravi Sharma is a self-motivated, successful entrepreneur and has a solid experience in the fertility segment. and he is the director at ARTbaby Global (ARThealthcare). He is a pharmacy graduate with post-graduation in business administration and has 14 years of rich experience in the field of infertility segment. He loves to write about IVF, Surrogacy, and other ART (assisted reproductive technology) news, issues, and updates. He is a Pharmacy graduate (B. Pharm) and M.B.A (marketing).
His most recent success includes the successful launch of the medical tourism company, ARTbaby, which offers treatment options for infertility, egg donation, and surrogacy. He likes spending time with his family and writing about various aspects of IVF surrogacy and donating eggs.