BioNews recently released information on an interesting surrogacy study presented at the British Fertility Society’s annual meeting concerning the mental health of children of surrogate mothers.

In the study, conducted by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, researchers gave interviews and questionnaires to 16 children between 12 and 22 years of age to assess their personal view of having a mother who acted as a surrogate.  While the effect of these relationships has come into question in the past — many wondering if a surrogate mother’s genetic child suffers in any way due to her “job” carrying another’s child — the study revealed most of the children had healthy attitudes about their mothers being surrogates, with 10 of the 16 children stating they actually have an ongoing relationship with the surrogate child.

Indeed, the stress caused by infertility oftentimes increases when potential parents are exploring surrogacy options.  Take 30 Rock co-star Elizabeth Banks, for instance, who not so long ago revealed the stress involved in the surrogacy process in an interview with People Magazine, describing the difficult nature of handing over the control of having your child to someone else.  (Banks had a gestational surrogate, which means her embryo was implanted into another woman’s womb.)

Despite its underlying stress factors, gestational surrogacy also serves as another “fertility-saving” option for women still hoping to have a child with their own genetic material after failed IVF cycles, miscarriages, and other fertility-related issues.  And now that we know surrogacy can create families as well as lasting relationships for surrogate siblings, it is only right to promote gestational surrogacy as another healthy alternative for potential parents!

Do you know any surrogate mothers and their children?

Click here for more information on New Hope Fertility Center’s Surrogacy Program.

An HBO documentary, Google Baby, which aired earlier last year talks about a new world of gestational surrogacy and globalization.

A synopsis from IMDB describes the documentary like this:

“Google Baby is a journey across three continents telling the story of the up-and-coming baby production industry in the age of globalization. Doron, an Israeli entrepreneur with a high tech background proposes a new service – Baby production. The baby producer (as he introduces himself) provides customers with a cost effective solution using outsourcing of the surrogacy element to India as way to lower prices. The preferred genetic material is selected by the clients and the rest is left in the hands of the producer: Sperm and eggs are purchased on-line and multiple embryos are produced and frozen. Packed in liquid nitrogen only the embryos that fit the customers preferences are shipped by air to India – where they are implanted into the wombs of local surrogates. The customers arrive only at the end of the nine month pregnancy period to pick up their babies. Today, technology has turned ‘making a baby’ into an act independent of sex. And globalization is making it affordable.”

Indeed, advances in technology are making it much easier for women to be gestational carriers and for surrogacy to help people have children. New Hope Fertility specializes in gestational carrier and surrogacy services and uses a particularly cutting edge technology with regard to freezing embryos for transfer so that intended parents don’t need to synchronize their cycles with the surrogate mother. Our unique freezing method, called vitrification (flash freezing), allows a much higher rate of freezing and thaw successes. More information can be found here: http://newhopefertility.com/biological_clock.shtml

In addition, New Hope Fertility does day 5 embryo transfers to increase the chances for a successful pregnancy. Historically, many embryo transfers were done on day 3, when retrieved eggs had divided into 4-8 cells. However, day 3 embryos would naturally be found in the fallopian tubes, not in the uterus — and therefore are not at an optimal stage for implantation. We also do not yet have the ability to predict whether or not a day three embryo has the capacity to continue development and become a high-quality blastocyst. By choosing the best blastocysts for transfer on day 5, it is much easier to select one with the greatest potential for implanting and forming a viable pregnancy.

Dr. Zhang will be speaking at an event on Building Families through Egg Donation and Gestational Surrogacy, put on in conjunction with the New England Fertility Institute

Date: November 10, 2010 Time: 5:30pm Cocktail Reception 6:00pm Presentation Place: Crowne Plaza Hotel 66 Hale St. White Plains, NY Speakers: Dr. Gad Lavy Dr. John Zhang Melissa Brisman, Esq. and parents through egg donation and gestational surrogacy For more information or to register contact: mwelch@nefertility.com or call 203.325.3200 ext: 329

http://www.nefertility.com/upcoming-events/

Below are a couple slides about to preview what Dr. Zhang will be speaking about. Full slides and presentation will be posted after the event.