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Original poster

Surrogacy and newborn baby - does it impact the baby?

92 replies

Lemonaade · 29/03/2023 19:41

Seen a few threads recently on this and I’m just intrigued- some people say it’s not fair to the baby. But how does the baby know? Apart from later in life when they find out.

Do they know as a newborn they’ve been taken away from its mother? What is the impact on the baby?

OP posts:

NamelessNancy · 30/03/2023 07:38

MissMaple82 · 29/03/2023 23:14

Also, it's odd that people are comparing to puppies and kittens. We take them away at 8 weeks old and expect them to be ok

You what? This age is chosen because it is a point at which the young will have been weaned. They are physically and emotionally ready to leave the litter and mum. Bear in mind dogs and people do not follow the exact same developmental timeline.

People are pointing it out because the laws surrounding separating puppies from their mothers centre the needs of the puppies rather than those commissioning them (the new owners).

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 30/03/2023 08:27

GodspeedJune · 30/03/2023 00:39

Yes, I held her to feed but would hand her over for winding and to sleep on other people because I felt so out of it. I’m sorry you were in a similar position.

Show quote history

That's not the same at all as surrogacy,you held her and fed her and she knew she was with her mum 💐

WaverleyOwl · 30/03/2023 08:42

Not quite the same as the premie babies, but I spent a month in hospital when I was 6 months old. This was in the 1970s, so my mum could be there during visiting hours, but there would have been long periods without her. I imagine there were lots of hours where my needs were not being met at the most fundamental level, although I'm sure they did their best.

I believe that this is the reason for my lifelong anxiety and attachment issues.

Just because babies can't remember something, does not mean it does not have a profound effect on their attachment or mental wellbeing as a child or adult.

In case it's not clear, I abhor surrogacy in all its forms.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Families

picklemewalnuts · 30/03/2023 09:39

To be fair, Waverley, babies that go to surrogates would have as high a standard of care as any other child. Obviously both adoptive and birth parents can fail.

That does not mean that the baby doesn't experience significant distress from the disappearance of everything they know.

Interestingly, my DC saw my mum and sister far less frequently than my ils. Despite which they settled well with them- I think the family likeness of scent and sound must have been the cause.

glasshole · 30/03/2023 09:47

Dente · 30/03/2023 02:36

I feel this is all about woman not wanting to feel disposable. You have to take the emotion out.

Personally, I think surrogacy is a choice and proper research needs to be done to see if there is any impact. The ancecdotal “ my baby cried when they were 1m away” doesn’t really matter.

Which part of the dozens and dozens of sisters about " the golden hour" and the "impact of separation" studies on new born babies is not good enough for you? Google it, there is LOADS of pure existing information from bona fide medical studies about the life long impact that this can cause.

Newuser82 · 30/03/2023 09:55

TorviShieldMaiden · 29/03/2023 22:04

Being a Velcro child isn’t a sign of good attachment though. It can actually be a sign of attachment issues. My dd always wants to be with me etc, but actually it’s a separation anxiety issue for her.

Yes I've wondered this also. My son spent time in scbu as a newborn and while I was with him as much as possible I wasn't able to be there 24 hours a day. He has had pretty severe separation anxiety and I've always wondered if this is why?

RomeoOscar · 30/03/2023 13:08

glasshole · 29/03/2023 19:49

When a baby is born all it recognises is the smell, taste, heartbeat and voice of its mother. It even recognise her body movements from being perched between her hips for so many months. That is ALL it wants. It's MOTHER. Not the person who the egg came from. Not the man the siren came from. It doesn't care a fig for genetics. The woman that grew the entire baby inside her. That's the mother and its what the baby needs.

Adoption centres the baby/child. It makes the best of a bad situation with the child needs being paramount.

Surrogacy flips that model on its head. It prioritise the purchasing parents WANTS first and foremost. Then the surrogates. Then right at the bottom it's the baby. The baby is almost an afterthought.

I have never seen this explained so clearly. And from this many other posts are explaining how different things after birth (adoption, specialist NICU care v surrogacy) centre the needs of the baby or not.

It's so clear. You all are wonderful.

FearTheWankingDead · 30/03/2023 13:14

Mummaganoush · 29/03/2023 20:13

Ok, I'm not discounting what has been said, but what about premmies? My 33 weeker couldn't see me or have me near for 6ish hours because she and I were both trying not to die, and she couldn't be held for 3 days. The NICU actively dissuaded me from touching in the early days beyond containment touch due to the stimulation.. is my DD irreparably damaged? I don't believe so. And what about maternal death during birth, rare in the Western world but what then?

Whilst surrogacy is by definition unnatural, if the child is raised by a loving parent or parents, are we saying they will be irreparably damaged?

I appreciate the best possible case for a child is a natural conception and birth, but this seems like a thread in poor taste for those who do not have the luxury of perfect natural conception, and a perfect after birth experience of the 4th trimester. The tone of this thread is demonising all based on some. There are some who persue surrogacy for the wrong reasons but there are many many more who take that choice as it's the only one they have.

I had a prem baby in NICU.
I feel sorry for anyone else who has too, and reads this thread with it’s evidence of how terrible it is for the babies.

I also think adoptive parents don’t always have the choice to spend the 4th trimester with the their children, they love their children just as much.

CaveMum · 30/03/2023 13:18

But there is a vast gulf of difference between separating a newborn from his/her mother due to emergency medical need, for either mother or child, and willingly choosing to separate a newborn from his/her mother because someone else wants to buy them.

FearTheWankingDead · 30/03/2023 13:24

But it seems like everyone on this thread is saying if you are separated the damage is done.

picklemewalnuts · 30/03/2023 14:18

FearTheWankingDead · 30/03/2023 13:24

But it seems like everyone on this thread is saying if you are separated the damage is done.

Damage happens that needs to be repaired. Yes. And while you can do a damn good job at repairing it, in those circumstances where it can't be avoided, you'd have to have a damn good reason to inflict it for no reason other than the desire of parents for a baby.

There are so many things that we can't achieve no matter how desperately we want them.

CaveMum · 30/03/2023 16:01

And now we have the case of a 68 year old Spanish actress having a baby via surrogate in the US (the practise is illegal in Spain).

I have great sympathy for the woman, having lost her only child 3 years ago, but the harsh fact is she will leave this baby girl orphaned, with all probability, before she is 20.

Spanish anger over TV star Ana Obregón's surrogate baby in US https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65122973

Ana Obregón in Madrid, Spain, in February 2023

Spanish anger over TV star Ana Obregón's surrogate baby in US

Ana Obregón comes in for criticism after news emerges she has had a baby girl via surrogacy aged 68.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65122973

Coyoacan · 30/03/2023 17:44

I'm sorry for all those poeple who could not spend the first days and weeks of their babies lives with them, nothing is perfect in this world and most of us go on to survive not having had a perfect childhood.

But please do not conflate the distress caused to a baby separated from its mother because of illness and the planned distress of a baby being sold on the market.

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 30/03/2023 17:57

ncedforthisone · 29/03/2023 23:32

Just to say that as a fellow preemie mum I find this all hard to read. It was very difficult to feel that we had already damaged our baby irrevocably as soon as they were born.

Aware of the risk of attachment issues, we ourselves took comfort from books like Philippa Perry's, who writes that attachment is a process, the culmination of months and years, not just the question of a golden hour/fourth trimester.

I don’t think anyone is trying to say that your situation is remotely similar to those babies who have been taken from their mother straight after birth for ….money ( and that is what it is in the vast majority of cases).

your baby still has its natural mother, and it knows a mother’s love. The PP who was separated physically from her baby for four days is nothing like the people recently in the news who have acquired a baby , of whom the mother will be 68 when they are 20, and the father will be 92. That is a vanity project, plain and simple.

Coyoacan · 30/03/2023 18:28

Does anyone know if there is any safeguarding in place in regards to the commissioning parents?

Notreallythatfussed · 30/03/2023 21:44

Coyoacan · 30/03/2023 18:28

Does anyone know if there is any safeguarding in place in regards to the commissioning parents?

In the UK, yes.

Coyoacan · 30/03/2023 21:49

@Notreallythatfussed

Thanks

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