AIBU to wonder if surrogacy is a bit cruel?

[NRGR]

Firstly I'd like to say I think someone being able to give a couple the opportunity to be parents is a lovely thing! I don't mean this in a nasty way.

When a baby's born they say they instantly know who mum is, by the sound of her voice, her smell, heartbeat etc. So taking that into account, is it a bit mean to take that baby after it's born and pass it straight to someone else? One of the first things they say to you when you have a baby is have plenty of skin to skin because you are all the baby really knows.

Surely regardless of whether the surrogate used her own eggs or not, as far as the baby's conserned she is mum and she will be the one the baby wants.

"Cruel" is the wrong word I think but it just made me wonder.

Stopfuckingshouting it is an issue in NICU - that's why there are concrete policies and procedures such as kangaroo care to minimise attachment and brain development problems in NICU babies.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3468719/

Not to defend Kim and Kanye's behaviour, which is creepy as fuck even if one were unequivocally pro-surrogacy which I am not, but I don't think you can call that an I can but I won't approach pissedoffdotcom.

Kim had quite significant health problems in her own pregnancies: pre-eclampsia, a premie, two placenta accretas. She was also apparently told she had a hole in her uterus that needed surgery to fix it if she were to conceive again, so I guess it's possible that she did try that and for whatever reason it didn't work well enough.

I don't personally draw the line that you do in respect of what you call social surrogacy as opposed to circumstances where it's apparently fine, in fact I think that's a completely illogical way to look at it. But if you're basically of the view that surrogacy is ok if there's no other way to have a child but not otherwise, that does leave something of a grey area with women who might be able to carry a child to term but who are high risk of loss and complications.

Oh actually on further googling she did try the surgery and it didn't work.

www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/celebrity-news/kim-kardashian-placenta-accreta-517726

Apparently I am not enough of a Kardashian scholar. So she's actually not able to carry a child at all any more, rather than being in the grey area of maybe. But I still think it's a point worth considering for those who draw a distinction between what they call social surrogacy and other types.

Shitme I don't think anyone has a right to a child and certainly not a third or fourth child. I think that's the issue for me re the Wests. Maybe it makes me a hypocrite as I'm currently expecting DC4, however the risks to my mental and physical health were part of the weighing up whether to have a child. I don't think it's ok to pass those (still very real) risks onto someone else in exchange for cash. You never ever hear of celebrities / rich people being commercial surrogates for women on minimum wage, which tells you all you need to know imo.

Robbie Williams cited "work pressures" for using a surrogate which I think is despicable.

Those who are surrogate mothers in the UK, good for you, but please don't pretend that you're being Mother Earth blessing some other woman (or man) with a precious gift. You've just let them use your body, as blood donors or live kidney donors do. I'm afraid you don't get bragging rights.

soontobe60

And yet, most of us would view donating a kidney or giving blood as a positive thing. Why, i wonder, is so much vitriol directed towards the donation of a uterus for 9 months?? Why are people seeking to control other women's choices here?? I am talking about an alturistic surrogacy here. Not one which has been paid for.

In the case of a surrogacy in the UK, with an altruistic motive on the part of the surrogate and the sperm and eggs from the parents, with only expenses paid. What's the problem?

The surrogate is exercising choice about what to do with her body.
The baby immediately gets close physical contact with parents and is nurtured and protected.
The child is genetically from the parents and raised by the parents.
The child may well know their surrogate mother and maintain a relationship with them.

If the act of growing the baby makes you a mother, then my DS's mother is at least half a plastic incubator in the next county.

Thinking people shouldn't use a surrogate if they have one or more existing children isn't the same as the argument that was being made about choice surrogacy though. You could have an existing child and be genuinely infertile.

I don't view the surrogate as the "mother" at all, birth mother perhaps, but not The Mother... If I found out my mother wasn't my genetic mum, but was a birth mother who decided to keep me instead of giving me to my genetic parents as she should have done, I would never fucking forgive her and she would cease to be my mother in my eyes.

shitmewithyourrhythmstick see that is interesting as i was not aware of that (perhaps i should research more first!). Altho I still do not agree with her attitude towards her surrogate - i do recall somewhere seeing that she was cross with her surrogate for 'daring' to get pregnant before consulting with her about a sibling. That is pretty disgusting. But I apologise for assuming she was partaking in social surrogacy.

I certainly don't see myself as my surro baby's mother! I have done none of the raising, none of the nurturing, i have only a basic knowledge of what her interests are. If someone told me i had to take her back it would be like taking a friend's child in as my own. People find that horrific but it's true. You go into surrogacy knowing that the baby you carry is not yours.

As for the whole 'women being pushed into it' most of us choose to be surrogates willingly. There have been cases where women have been enticed & the authorities have failed to intervene despite being warned several times but on the whole it is a choice. Nobody would bat an eyelid if i willingly gave blood, donated eggs, donated a kidney, bone marrow. And actually in the UK it is difficult to do truly altruistic - as in for no recompense - surrogacy because CAFCASS question expenses that are both too high or too low.

• most of us here in the UK that should say. Even those of us who surrogate here are pretty appalled by the treatment that happens in less developed countries because people cannot afford to feed their families

You could look at it as extreme feminism if you like - playing devils advocate here.

If i am not coerced or in desperate need and find pregnancy and birth easy and enjoyable - perhaps I would prefer a job as a host surrogate rather than stacking shelves - both jobs use my body.

A pp mentioned separation issues and NICU. Can I ask how that manifests please? I stupidly gave my now adult child's father a lot of access without me when he was pre verbal - one parent as good as the other i thought. No, lots of problems and counselling ensued. I can't remember at this distance what a young child with separation problems looks like.

I certainly don't see myself as my surro baby's mother!

To me this resembles the 'feelings over facts' culture so prevalent now. You got pregnant using your own egg and carried and gave birth to that child. By every definition you are the mother. If you aren't the mother then who is? Every child has a mother, even if that mother isn't raising them and that is their right not the right of the parent to identify their way out of it.

TBF I wasn't aware that KK literally couldn't carry another baby when I first posted either pissedoffdotcom. So it appears we both posted without sufficient knowledge of her reproductive organs!

I do think though that if you're going to try and separate some choices to use surrogacy from others, that does require consideration of women who might be able to carry a child to term or somewhere close to it but have significantly less chance of this being possible than the average. Especially as so many complications carry potential risks for the foetus as well as the mother.

In KK’s case - I don’t think you should be able to have endless children using someone else’s body. All of us will reach a point where we simply can’t have any more children - whether it’s because of age or complications from previous births. I don’t think you can call that infertility because it happens to us all. I have of course a lot of sympathy for people who are unable to carry any and I can see why they would go down the surrogacy route even though it’s morally questionable in a lot of cases.

The idea that someone who has a hole in their womb from previous placental issues and who can't therefore carry another pregnancy to term isn't infertile is a rather odd one. As is comparing infertility through menopause to infertility through medical complication. We all run out of eggs whether we have had any children or not, we don't all get holes in our wombs. Some women remain able to carry a pregnancy to term until quite shortly before they run out of eggs.

Basically, the distinctions some posters seem to be trying to draw here between types of surrogacy, that don't relate to the level of exploitation and treatment of the surrogate, are bemusing to me. Obviously I hope even the most ardently pro-surrogacy person would be against blatant abuses. But even looking to those where the surrogate considers herself to be acting selflessly and willingly, if this is as positive a thing as some of you claim, why does it need to be restricted to people with no children, or with zero chance of carrying to term, or with no ability whatsoever to conceive? It's effectively saying that some people are allowed to pay money for the use of a willing woman's body but others aren't.

For me there is a difference between a medical need & a social need. Somebody who is infertile for whatever reason is imo worlds apart from somebody who doesn't want to get pregnant because it will ruin their figure/interrupt their career - which is what social surrogacy is. And it is currently illegal here in the UK. I consider gay dads to fall under the 'medical' need as obviously they can't do it themselves.

Bluestitch i am her mother in the technical sense of i carried her. But in the practical, every day sense i am nothing of a mother figure to her. I don't refer to her as my daughter, nor her me her mum. Legally I am not her parent either.

@Pissedoffdotcom

It'll only be a matter of time.

What will???

We would accept that a baby removed from its mother at birth and adopted, will experience trauma from that removal.

No, many of us do not think that this is the case at all. There are all sorts of far more plausible reasons why there are higher rates of personality disorders and MH problems among adopted children.

The long-term outcomes for children born of gestational surrogacy appear to be similar to those of other regular intact families, and show no similarities with the long-term outcomes for adopted children. There is no evidence at all that they suffer any particular trauma as a result of being taken from the gestational mother.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26454266

I agree that there are some reasons to be nervous about commercial surrogacy. I am open to persuasion on commercial surrogacy, but think there is the potential for some serious problems and conflicts to develop.

I worry about the effect of surrogacy on the mother or sperm donor.

DH is American and donated sperm at college for money. Within a week of DC1 being born, he told me he wished he hadn't and couldn't stop thinking about potential children he'd fathered. That was 20+ years ago but I know he thinks about it.

I'd imagine the feeling is much stronger if your a woman and give birth.

I like the way that women in the US who receive benefits can't be paid surrogates. In some developing countries, foreigners can't use native donors. I think the money is an unfair 'carrot' in front of a poor person's nose.

theoryBuilding in my own experience, women tend to be very stoic when going into surrogacy. Most have had their own children & often don't plan on adding to their families anymore - there is understandably always worry amongst the surro world when somebody who has never experienced a pregnancy appears to find a match.

I have had my own DS since I was a surrogate - surro baby is 4 in August as my DS will be 1 in June. When I went into it I was pretty adament i wanted no more kids, so there was never any 'oh god i'm giving up my baby' in my mind. Now that I have DS there is a distinct difference in how I feel about him compared to my surro baby. She was taken to the hospital by her dads an hour after she was born (unplanned home birth) & i went to bed for some recovery time - there was no pang of longing, no desperate feeling of loss.
When DS was born, the first time i went to do the school run without him i was an anxious mess because we were apart.

It's difficult to explain, but your mindset is very firm when you start. And i personally always recommend that if a person has ANY doubts, even niggles, about their ability to hand the baby over, they don't do it. It can be more traumatic for everybody involved if the relationship breaks down

No, many of us do not think that this is the case at all. There are all sorts of far more plausible reasons why there are higher rates of personality disorders and MH problems among adopted children.

Current theory in psychology is that attachment disorders/MH are often caused by high levels of stress (and therefore hormones -adrenaline, cortisol etc) the mother feels and passes to the fetus during pregnancy. This is seen in children who aren't adopted as well - for example to women in abusive relationships or who suffer a trauma/grievance while pregnancy. It's likely an mother choosing adoption is experiencing a high level of stress hormones either due to external factors or due to her choice to place the child. This is more likely to causes problems then the act of the newborn not being reared by the person who carried them.

I know several adopted children as adults and in all situations those children have spoken either of meeting their birth parents and feeling absolutely at home

That is a nice story and all, but it does not have any thing to do with gestational surrogacy. A more likely reason why people often feel an instant bond with genetic parents when they meet them is because they share DNA in common (this is usually not true of surrogates). Long-lost genetic siblings are also likely to feel at home with each other when they finally meet--obviously siblings do not gestate one another, the bond most likely comes because they are genetically somewhat similar and feel a connection as a result.

My babies were born prematurely and went straight to special care after a quick cuddle with me and it was upsetting to me at the time that we would all miss out on the golden hour
But - I think as long as the baby has skin to skin with their mum (or dad) straight after birth I don't think it matters if it is the actual birth mum

There was a moving article in the times magazine on Saturday about a couple and their surrogate

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-surrogate-her-husband-and-the-baby-we-thought-wed-never-have-ht9lnnkjc