What is gestational surrogacy?

What is gestational surrogacy?

As we all know, there are two types of surrogacy that is traditional and gestational. Traditional surrogacy is banned by most of the states since the women acts as both surrogate mother and genetic mother in this process. Therefore, most of the surrogacy arrangements done in present days is gestational arrangements where a gestational carrier (surrogate mother) carries a non-biological baby for the tenure and relinquishes the new born immediately after birth.

In gestational surrogacy, the gestational carrier is impregnated through IVF therapy, the most popular technique of ART. In this process, the intended mother needs to take certain drugs prescribed by the physician. These drugs are given to stimulate ovaries to produce multiple ova during ovulation because a successful IVF therapy requires multiple ova. An intended mother needs to take these drugs up to eight or twelve days. Once the doctors locate matured ova through blood test or ultrasound therapy, they take out the matured ova by performing a small surgical procedure by giving a small amount of anaesthesia. Meanwhile, healthy and quality sperms are taken out from the intended father.

The ovum is fertilized by allowing the best swimmers into the cavity. Normally, it will take couple of hours to fertilize the ovum. Once the egg is fertilized, physicians can see the growth of an embryo. It is cultured in the laboratory for three to six days. Once it reaches to the state of fluid cavity where the growth of placenta is seen, it is injected into the uterus of a surrogate mother to achieve pregnancy. Since the embryo is formed by using the gametes of commissioning couples, the baby born through this process is biologically not connected to the surrogate mother.