One of the primary reasons for opting for gestational surrogacy is to get a biological child similar to the intended mother by using the intended mother’s egg and the intended father’s sperm.
But age restriction is often a barrier to the conduction of surrogacy.
According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the preferred age range for surrogate mothers is 21 years to 45 years.
The lower age limit for a surrogate mother is 21 years because the medical professional believes that before this age limit a woman may be physically prepared for carrying a child but emotional health is not to take the responsibility of carrying and relinquishing the child/ children for others.
The risk of genetic disorder transmission to the fetus is higher in older-aged mothers. The intended mother age bar is a considerable factor in the case of mothers’ eggs used for gestational surrogacy.
The transmission of genetic disorders is usually transmitted through maternal mitochondria. Similar to other cells, egg cells in the mother contain mitochondria but the tail of the sperm cells only contains mitochondria.
During fertilization, the head of the sperm, which contains its genes, is inserted into the egg. Therefore, mitochondria are present in the tail of the sperm left behind.
It means all of us inherit our mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from our mothers.
Mitochondrial dysfunction leads to a wide variety of diseases that have no cure.
The vital organs like kidneys, heart, liver, brain, muscles, and central nervous system demand the highest energy.
These organs are primarily get affected by the malfunctioning of mitochondria.
Mitochondrial disorder can cause infant death and also impacts the childhood and adulthood of surviving children.
Advancement in assisted reproductive technology brings three-parent IVF technology to solve this problem.
Therefore, aged women can also perform surrogacy.
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is not an optimum treatment approach for eliminating the risk of abnormal mtDNA transmission.
It may only reduce the incidence rate of mitochondrial disease in subsequent generations by diagnosing the condition.
A whole oocyte donation is an option for women having high levels of heteroplasmic mtDNA mutations to ensure an unaffected child is born.
But, this may not be well accepted as no genetic link is present between the mother and the child. The ‘three-parent reproductive option’ is an alternative approach to prevent genetic disease transmission, as it offers mitochondrial genome substitution between gametes or embryos.
‘Three parents babies’ is a very exhilarating concept to prevent some inherited diseases.
Inherited diseases have direct linked up with genetic disorders due to abnormalities involving single or multiple genomes.
Underlying genetic changes are the cause of such types of diseases.
In April 2016, a baby boy born in Mexico is one of the first successful intentional “three-parent” babies.
The term three parents is used due to the birth of such children involving a bonus DNA obtained from a female donor is used along with the biological parents of the child.
This reproduction process is considered a reproductive medicine for children who have genetically diseased parents.
Three parenting options in the reproductive treatment process is a novel invention.
this can be a hope for parents having genetically ill to have a genetically correct offspring birth and subsequent healthy generations
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.