Pandemic pushing more women into surrogacy

Pandemic pushing more women into surrogacy

Priyanka Chokhani TNN

02.09.2021

When the pandemic shut down their autoparts supply business in Maharashtra last year, Sheetal pawned her gold jewellery to repay debts. A lull in Covid-19 cases in the country brought the couple hope that income would pick up. Then, the second wave hit.

“This time, there was nothing left to sell or pawn,” said Rahul, Sheetal’s husband, who took up a job as a mechanic, but the pay was barely enough for their sustenance. Soon they were missing payments of their 8-year-old son’s school fees.

“We had heard about clinics where one could become a surrogate. We discussed it and Sheetal decided to become one. The money would keep us afloat until things get better,” said Rahul. His wife, 37, and three months pregnant, is currently a resident at Kiran Infertility Centre in Hyderabad.

Since the pandemic, the centre in Hyderabad has recorded “an exponential rise” in women approaching it to become egg donors or surrogates, according to Dr Samit Sekhar, executive director and embryologist at Kiran.

“Inquiries from women wanting to become surrogates have increased up to 10-fold during the pandemic. Earlier, we used to get two inquiries a day on average. Now we are getting up to 10 per day,” he told TOI.

Sekhar said that a survey of 100 women in the centre conducted last year had revealed that a majority of them had turned into donors or surrogates to make up for their husbands’ loss of income.

At the facility, surrogate mothers earn between 5 lakh to 6.5 lakh and stay at the clinic for the duration of their pregnancy so their health can be monitored and they can be provided a nutritional diet. To the couple seeking surrogacy services, the entire procedure can cost up to Rs 25 lakh.

In Gujarat, often referred to as India’s surrogacy capital, 29-year-old Chhaya has become a surrogate for the second time. The mother of two said her family fell on hard times after her husband lost his job as a waiter last year. “Agents who connect surrogates to clinics visit our area often and information on surrogacy is easily available. I have done this before so I knew what it would mean,” said Chhaya, who is five months pregnant and residing at Akanksha Hospital, one of the largest surrogacy centres in Anand.

(Names have been changed on request)