Children give joy to their parents, but today, not everyone can experience such happiness. Many couples cannot have children for various reasons. Do not despair, because the medicine industry invented a great way to become happy parents.
A surrogate arrangement is a term used in human reproduction, meaning that a woman voluntarily agrees to become pregnant in order to bear, give birth, and pass on a newborn to other people – legal parents. There are no representative statistics on surrogacy, but according to unofficial estimates, over 220 thousand children were born globally with the help of surrogate mothers.
Surrogacy is divided into two types – traditional, when the surrogate mother’s egg is fertilized with the sperm of a biological father, and gestational – when a surrogate mother does not have a biological connection with a child. In this case, conception occurs outside the body of a genetic mother, after which a fertilized egg is transferred to another woman’s womb.
Conditions for successful surrogacy:
- availability of medical indications;
- documents required for surrogacy;
- the spouses (or one of the expectant parents) in whose interests in vitro fertilization and surrogacy are carried out must have a genetic connection with a child;
- a surrogate mother should not have a direct genetic connection with a child. Pregnancy is allowed to be carried out by close relatives of future parents (a mother, sister, cousin, etc.).
The medical indications are:
- congenital or acquired absence of the uterus;
- congenital malformations of the uterus;
- deformation of the cervix or its cavity, which prevents the carrying;
- endometrial pathology (synechia, obliteration of the uterus, endometrial atrophy);
- diseases and conditions included in a List of Indications;
- benign tumors making a pregnancy impossible;
- more than three unsuccessful attempts of IVF in obtaining embryos of good quality, the transfer of which does not lead to the occurrence of pregnancy;
- habitual miscarriage with three or more spontaneous miscarriages in a medical history.
All other cases of infertility can be treated with ART (assisted reproductive technology).
There are more and more couples ordering to carry out a child for them, though the cost of surrogacy is rather high. But thanks to surrogacy agreements, medicine helps infertile couples become happy parents. It is especially important in light of the fact that the problem of infertility is challenging worldwide. According to statistics, every fifth couple in the world cannot conceive a child in the traditional way. In many cases, surrogacy is the last chance to feel the joy of being parents for couples who do not have children of their own due to their health problems. At the same time, there are plenty of healthy women under 35 who are allowed to act as a surrogate mother and who don’t mind bearing a child while earning some money.