Pregnant cause

When Mumbai-based Reema (name changed) found out she had cancer of the uterus, she was devastated.

When Mumbai-based Reema (name changed) found out she had cancer of the uterus, she was devastated. More than the cancer—for which she could and did have a hysterectormy—it was the news that she couldn’t have a baby that sent the 31-year-old hurtling into a severe depression. It was then that Reema’s mother decided to step in, lending not just her ears and shoulders to her grieving daughter, but also her womb. She had decided to be a surrogate mother.

Soon enough, the process was set into motion. Reema’s sister donated her ovaries, the egg was fertilised with the sperm taken from Reema’s husband and the embryo implanted in 56-year-old Reema’s mother’s womb. Now, she is 14 weeks pregnant and the family is staying in Pune till delivery under the guidance of the Ruby Hall Clinic’s in vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinic.

Reema’s is not a stray case. With infertility rates pegged at 14-15 per cent in the country and one out of 10 such couples seeking surrogacy, the trend is here to stay. Which is why an increasing number of surrogate mothers have surfaced at the 400-odd IVF centres in the country—from Mumbai, Chandigarh and Kerala to Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir—in the past couple of years.

“There is a huge demand for surrogate mothers,” agrees Dr Naina Patel of the Akanksha IVF centre in Anand, Gujarat. “We’ve had inquiries from 70 couples, of whom a sizeable chunk is foreigners, NRIs and even locals. We have assisted 35 couples so far.”

Dr Sunita Tandulwadkar, director of the IVF clinic at the Ruby Hall Clinic, who has 10 such cases with her, says that in case of medical complications, women in the family tend to help. “It’s a risk for women over 50 years who offer to be surrogate mothers for their daughters. We had to give Reema’s mother hormone treatment to repair the lining in her womb,” she says. While some couples look for volunteers within the family, almost 90 per cent seek outside help, mainly through advertisements, and sometimes with help from gynaecologists.

On the flip side, gynaecologists are worried about “cheap surrogacy” or surrogacy of convenience, and exploitation of women by NRI couples. Says Dr Kamini Rao, director of the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR): “Medical surrogacy is all right where the woman cannot conceive or there are other complications. But it’s thumbs down for the couples who opt for surrogacy simply because they don’t have the time to go through a full-term pregnancy.”

While most gynaecologists are drawing the line at inquiries on “hiring surrogate mothers” because career-oriented women have no time for a pregnancy, Tandulwadkar rues that the trend is catching on. She recalls a persistent NRI based in Singapore. “She was in the IT sector and unwilling to give up her career and get ‘stuck’ with a child. But the couple wanted a child, so they issued ads and employed a south Indian woman. She is now with them and four months pregnant.

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“We try our best to help these couples and convince them that the mother-child bonding is essential,” says Tandulwadkar, citing the case of a 43-year-old librarian from Mumbai who didn’t want to give up her PhD for a pregnancy. “The husband is supportive and will pay anything to hire a surrogate mother,” she shrugs. In such cases, money is not a problem, with couples paying a minimum of Rs 1 lakh to the surrogate mother.

“The guidelines laid down by the Indian Council of Medical Research are broadly followed by gynaecologists. A surrogate mother should not be unmarried and should have delivered at least once before she is hired,” says Patel. The ISAR is planning to review these guidelines, says Rao, who is also a member of the government’s National Accreditation Committee, which is planning a debate on April 22.