Post: #1

Another data point to prove our long-standing point that female reproductive and sexual behavior is not without consequences. I know: surprise, surprise.

(Full story.)

Quote:Surrogate-born children are more likely to suffer depression than those carried by their real mother

Children born to a surrogate mother have more emotional difficulties than those carried by their biological mother, according to new research.
But children have less problems coping with the idea that they were conceived using a donor egg and sperm and are not related to their parents.

The study suggests that children find it more difficult to handle the idea that they were carried by another woman than that they are not biologically related to their parents.

For the study, which was carried out by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, the researchers followed 30 families who had used a surrogate, 31 that had used egg donation, 35 that had used donor sperm, and 53 that had conceived naturally.

(continues)

Post: #2

Makes sense to me. I think there's pretty strong evidence that infants begin to bond with their mothers in utero.

That said, historically a lot of women died in childbirth so kids were routinely raised by women who did not carry them and seemed to do just fine. I'd be curious if it has more to do with the type of parents that go the surrogate route than the actual surrogacy.