Are Surrogate Pregnancies Associated with Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes?

Little is known about whether pregnancy and neonatal outcomes are different for gestational carriers (i.e., surrogates) than for women with unassisted conceptions. Using a Canadian population-based dataset, researchers reviewed outcomes from 850,000 singleton pregnancies of ≥20 weeks' gestation. About 800 of those pregnancies involved gestational carriers; in 26% of those cases, antenatal care was provided by family physicians or midwives.

Risk for severe maternal morbidity (a composite of 41 outcomes) was 2.3% for unassisted conception and 7.8% for gestational carriage (adjusted relative risk, 3.3). The difference was driven by higher risks for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and postpartum hemorrhage among gestational carriers. Risk fo…