by Beth
(Tennessee)
I am in the process of becoming a surrogate and i was wondering if being pregnant via surrogacy raises a greater risk for death than if I were to get pregnant by my husband naturally?
Reply by Rayven
**Please note, this answer assumes gestational surrogacy; traditional surrogacy without fertility drugs is the same as natural conception**
Beth,
Before proceeding with surrogacy, you need to seek professional medical advice. Please go over the risks and effects of surrogacy with your own doctor as well as the IVF clinic. Yes, the procedures that you will be subjected to have risks. Everything does. Please talk with your doctor about those risks.
To answer your over-all question in a non-medical way, yes, technically, you would have a greater risk of dying while being a surrogate mother than you would by getting pregnant naturally. It’s just common sense.
1. Medications
You will be taking tons of medications orally, via vaginal suppository, and through daily injections. They have side effects.
2. Procedures
You’ll be doing more procedures with surrogacy than you would with a regular pregnancy. You have the transfer, multiple additional bloodwork, testing such as a saline ultrasound, additional ultrasounds during the pregnancy and a higher chance of an amniocentesis.
3. Risk of Multiples
Finally, surrogacy does have high rate of multiples, twins, triplets or more. This causes more tests, more strain on your body, and more chance of complications.
Does this mean that you have a large chance of dying while being a surrogate? No. Not really, depending on your definition of the word “large”. Dying due to pregnancy is pretty rare in America in this day-and-age, though it does still happen. Being a surrogate may increase that chance, but overall, its still pretty small.
**Consult your doctor for facts about these rates before making a decision to become a surrogate mother. This information is not designed to replace medical advice.
More risky than death is the fact that while being a surrogate, you do have a chance of losing your ability to ever have another child of your own. It is not uncommon for a surrogate mother to lose her reproductive ability, to lose one or both ovaries, or even to have a hysterectomy in the attempt to help others become parents. This is a concern that does need to be examined prior to becoming a surrogate mother.