New Delhi: Premila Vaghela had opted to become a surrogate mother and deliver child of a US-based couple to supplement her family income and brighten the future of her own two kids. Last Wednesday, Premila, who was eight months pregnant, died due to unexplained complications. But she completed her job - the child was delivered and is recuperating from early birth.
Premila, 30, paid the price of offering herself as surrogate with her life. Dr Manish Banker of Pulse Hospital, where Premila was a surrogate, said that they are clueless as to why Premila developed a fatal health problem. Dr Banker specialises in offering IVF services.
“Premila had come for routine check-up and was sitting in the hospital. While she was chatting with her husband Karsan, she suddenly had a convulsion and fell on the floor. We immediately took her for treatment. Since she was showing signs of distress, we conducted an emergency caesarean section delivery,” said Dr Banker.
The child, who was born a month premature, was admitted in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Dr Banker said that the child should be stable soon.
Meanwhile, Premila developed severe complications and she was shifted to Sterling Hospital for better intensive care. Sterling Hospital officials said that Premila was brought to the hospital in an extremely critical condition. She suffered a major cardiac arrest and died same day.
“Surrogate mother” is the term used to describe a woman who wishes to relinquish the child she is carrying after its birth. The surrogate mother could be carrying her own biological child, wishing to relinquish the child. In such cases, the child is raised by the biological father and his partner. This is also known as the straight method. A more common procedure is gestational surrogacy where the surrogate is pregnant with a child through an embryo transfer. Here she relinquishes the child to the biological parents once the child is conceived. When the surrogate mother does not receive any monetary gain from the process, it is known as altruistic surrogacy. However, more often than not surrogate mothers are reimbursed for their services. The term used to describe this form of surrogacy is “commercial surrogacy”.
