By IANS,
London : Surrogacy remains stigmatised despite changing societal attitudes, a new study has found.
Olga van den Akker of Middlesex University, London, said that previous stigmatisation of surrogate mothers in the media had added to the reluctance to undertake this treatment option.
Together with colleague Aimée Poote of Warwick University Medical School, van den Akker set out to study current day attitudes to surrogacy among 187 women chosen from the general population.
Only eight were willing to become genetic surrogate mothers, and nine gestational surrogates. Significant differences were found in age, with younger women being more willing.
Women who were unsure about the idea of surrogacy were less likely to have had children, whereas those who were potentially willing and those who were unwilling were more likely to have had them.
Attitudes towards advertising for surrogates, the consequences of surrogacy, and factors that induce women to become surrogates differed between groups, as did reasons for wanting to become parents themselves.
“Women who were potentially willing to become surrogates were more likely to say that they would be happy to be identified as the surrogate to the couple and the child,” said van den Akker.
“Those who thought that parenthood was very important were also more likely to be willing to help others to become parents like themselves.”
According to Akker, this showed that potential surrogates do this because they value families and parenthood and not because they hold unusual ideas about having children.
These findings were presented Monday at the 24th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona.