Surrogacy: IVF Surrogacy Process and Cost in India

Synopsis

Surrogacy is an arrangement where a surrogate mother bears and delivers a child for another couple or person. Read more about the surrogacy process & cost in India.

Nothing can match the felicity of having your own family. Couples having a hard time in conceiving a baby naturally, despite having unprotected intercourse for over a year, are suggested to go for assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments that include IUI, ICSI, and IVF. Besides these options, surrogacy has emerged as a popular option for intending parents.

Talking about surrogacy in India, it has in the past few years’ gone major legislative reform, and thus involves some legal complications that intending parents need to be clear about. This write-up provides an insight into different aspects of surrogacy. Let us understand them.

What is surrogacy?

There are a lot of confusions for surrogacy meaning in India. In the simplest term, it is a process in which a woman legally agrees to bear a child for a couple that is also referred to as an ‘intending couple’ and hand over the child to the couple after the birth.

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019

Now that you have understood what surrogacy is, it is important that you understand ‘The Surrogacy Regulation Bill, 2019.’

Here are some major highlights of the bill.

• A baby born out of surrogacy will be considered as a biological baby of the intended couple.
• The surrogate mother, on will, can withdraw from the process before embryo planation.
• As per the bill, commercial surrogacy is strictly prohibited, but altruistic surrogacy is allowed.
• In the case of altruistic surrogacy, the surrogate is given medical expenses and insurance coverage.
• The process is only allowed for the couples who have proven infertility and thus cannot conceive naturally.
• It is compulsory for the indenting couples to have a ‘certificate of essentiality’ and a ‘certificate of eligibility’ issued by the authority.

Now before this bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in 2019, government from time-to-time pronounced points to regulate surrogacy in India.

In 2013, the government banned surrogacy for single parents and homosexual couples. Once was a popular destination for surrogacy, commercial surrogacy was banned in 2015. So, foreigners now cannot use surrogates.

Essentiality Criteria

• The intending couple needs to obtain a certificate of infertility from the district medical board.
• An order by a Magistrate’s court needs to be passed for parentage and custody of the surrogate baby.
• There must be an insurance coverage of the surrogate mother for a period of 16 months, covering required medical expenses.
• The intending couples need to be married for at least five years.
• The couple must not have a surviving child to be able to use surrogacy.
• The age of the intending mother should be between 23-50 years and the father should be 26-55 years.
• The surrogate needs to be married with at least one child and a close relative of the intending couple.
• The certificate of mental and psychological fitness needs to be obtained.

So, these are a few things that an intending couple needs to know. Besides these points, it is important that the clinic that you choose for the surrogacy holds a good reputation and has a team of well-experienced doctors. Ensuring the clinic’s reputation is crucial in determining the success of the procedure.

For more information on surrogacy or fertility-related issues, get in touch with us today!