Surrogates make 'better' parents

VIENNA, Austria -- Surrogate mothers and fathers can be better parents for their babies than some natural parents, a survey has shown.

Researchers at the City University, London, say parenting skills among surrogate parents, including giving more warmth and emotional involvement, are honed to a higher standard than average "possibly reflecting some tendency towards over-investment in the child."

Fears that babies born through a surrogate pregnancy may show different temperaments than normal pregnancies also proved unfounded.

Fiona MacCallum, a research psychologist at the university, told the Press Association the findings were "generally reassuring."

She added: "There is no evidence so far to support the concerns that have been voiced about the practice of surrogacy.

"However, these children were still in infancy and it remains to be seen how these families will change as the children grow up."

The research, which looked at babies aged between nine to 12 months, was presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Vienna on Monday.

The researchers studied 43 families with a child born through surrogacy arrangements, compared to 51 families which had a child conceived through In-Vitro Fertilisation with donated eggs, and 86 families with a naturally-conceived child.

The survey distinguished between two types of surrogacy. Of the 43 surrogate families, two-fifths had embarked on a full surrogacy arrangement where both the commissioning mother and father are the genetic parents and conception is through IVF.

The rest involved partial surrogacy, where the surrogate mother is also the genetic mother.

Professor Susan Golombok, Director of the Family and Child Psychology Research Centre at the university, and her team found that surrogate and egg donor parents scored well in four of the five tests -- warmth, emotional involvement and mothering and fathering qualities.

For the fifth aspect, the sensitivity of a mother's responses to her child, there was no significant difference between the three family types.

MacCallum said: "It should be noted that the natural conception families were all functioning well and were not getting low scores on these measures of parenting -- rather the surrogacy and egg donation mothers were getting particularly high scores.

"These results are generally positive. The surrogacy families seem to be characterised by warm relationships and high quality of parenting.

"The high emotional involvement of these mothers with their children can also be positive, although it is possible that it reflects some tendency towards over-investment in the child."

No differences were seen in the temperaments of children from the three family types, as judged by fussiness of mood, adaptability to new situations, general activity and predictability of reaction.

The research also discovered that perceived problems handing over surrogate babies did not seem to materialise.

MacCullum added: "It is often assumed that surrogate mothers will have difficulties handing the child over following the birth.

"In fact, we found only one instance of the surrogate having slight doubts at this time, with all other mothers reporting no problems.

"Since the birth of the child, the majority of the families had kept in touch with the surrogate to some extent and 70% saw her at least once every couple of months.

"Ninety per cent of commissioning mothers reported that they still had a very good relationship with the surrogate, and no mothers described any major conflict or hostility between the commissioning couple and the surrogate.

"The concern about the commissioning mother's feelings about the surrogate's involvement with the child seems unfounded."

The majority of surrogate mothers are unknown to the commissioning couple before arrangements are made but one-third are either a sister or friend of the commissioning mother.