title: Surrogate pregnancy: clinical features of forty-four cases.
abstract: This record analysis describes the obstetric outcomes of a series of 44 pregnancies occurring in 41 women who underwent donor insemination as participants in a private surrogate parenting program between 1981 and 1985. The typical surrogate mother was 25 years old with a high school education and married with one child 2 years old. Twenty-nine percent of the sample reported no source of income other than welfare. Two thirds of the histories included at least one of the following perinatal risk factors: smoking (n = 19), low annual income (n = 15), unmarried status (n = 12), or parity of 0 or greater than 4 (n = 5). Six losses occurred in the first or second trimester. Thirty-nine viable infants were born to 37 women and include one set of fraternal twins. Three of the singleton newborns weighed less than 2500 gm; newborn morbidity after preterm delivery occurred in one case. Women with complications (n = 14) were similar in maternal age, education, parity, annual income, marital status, and smoking history to women without complications (n = 24). A role for psychosocial stress and financial motivation in the etiology of these outcomes is explored.
authors.affiliation: Department of Parent-Child Nursing and Reproductive Sciences Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
authors.forename: N E
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Reame
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D007743:Labor, Obstetric; D008393:Marriage; D010298:Parity; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D013533:Gestational Carriers