What can go wrong with surrogacy?

I think it’s a very, very important consideration that all couples who wish to go through a surrogacy arrangement should consider before they actually make a firm decision to go down this route. The most important consideration would be where to have your treatment.

Any surrogacy arrangement you have in an unlicensed setting will not give you the legal right to be the parent of a child. So when choosing a clinical, you’ll need to ensure in the UK you have a treatment with an HFEA licensed clinic so that you can ensure you can be the legal parent of the child at the end of the arrangement.

If you’re choosing clinics abroad, as part of the International Surrogacy, you need to ensure a few aspects.

1. One of them is if surrogacy is legal in the country in which you wish to have the treatment.
2. Number two is if you have the treatment there, whether there is an arrangement that if you can legally bring the child and this arrangement will be acceptable by the family court in the United Kingdom.

These are some of the important things you need to consider when you’re just choosing a clinic or a setting where you wish to have your treatment.

The other important considerations would be that there is a remote, but a very real possibility, that the host surrogate may decide not to hand over the child at the end. This is probably at the top of the mind for most of the patients going through it, “What if I do not have my child?”

The other consideration, while I may say it’s minor, but still extremely important to consider, would be is when doing is a surrogacy arrangement to ensure that you have a candid discussion with the host surrogate because if there were to be any obstetric complications, your views and the host surrogate’s views should be in concurrence. For example, if there is a congenital abnormality or birth defect of a child you may wish not to have the child, but the surrogate might not want to go through a termination because of the psychological consequences. You have to understand that the responsibility of the obstetric team or the fetal medicine team in such situation lies with the host surrogate and not with yourself.

For example, if there is a congenital abnormality or birth defect of a child you may wish not to have the child, but the surrogate might not want to go through a termination because of the psychological consequences. You have to understand that the responsibility of the obstetric team or the fetal medicine team in such a situation lies with the host surrogate and not with yourself.

That is something you need to consider when you are putting in place a surrogacy arrangement. The other one important consideration, if during the course of the surrogacy arrangement or during the course the pregnancy, if the surrogate where to have a life-threatening complication or for some reason lead to an unexpected adverse event, there is an exposure to yourself.

So you should put in place adequate insurances and life insurance, not only for yourself but also for the surrogate’s family. These are some important consideration you should consider ways in which surrogacy can go wrong.