Surrogacy at Yaal Fertility Centre, Chennai

Surrogacy in India is governed by the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, which significantly restricts who may enter into a surrogacy arrangement, what form that arrangement may take, and how it must be conducted. Commercial surrogacy — where the surrogate is paid beyond agreed medical and related expenses — is not permitted; the law permits only altruistic surrogacy, and it sets out specific conditions relating to intending parents, the surrogate herself, and the medical and legal process that must be followed.

This is a detailed and actively evolving area of law, and it is not one we will summarise into a simple checklist on this page. We will not state here who currently qualifies as an intending parent or a surrogate under the Act, what relationship (if any) must exist between a surrogate and the intending parents, or how the law applies to any specific category of patient. These questions must be answered by qualified legal counsel, in conjunction with a medical evaluation, on a case-by-case basis, and confirmed against what Yaal Fertility Centre is currently licensed and able to facilitate.

If you are considering surrogacy, the appropriate first step is a combined medical and legal consultation, not a decision based on general information found online — including this page.

Because Indian law permits only altruistic surrogacy, a surrogate may not be paid a fee for carrying the pregnancy. What is generally permissible are payments covering the surrogate’s medical expenses, insurance, and other costs directly related to the pregnancy and delivery, within the boundaries the law sets. The precise categories of permissible expense, and how they must be documented, are legal questions that must be confirmed with qualified legal counsel — this page does not itemise them, since doing so incorrectly could mislead intending parents about what is and is not lawful.

Costs for intending parents in a surrogacy arrangement typically include the medical costs of the IVF cycle itself, the surrogate’s permitted medical and related expenses, legal costs associated with drafting and reviewing the arrangement and establishing parentage, and counselling. Because of the legal complexity involved, obtaining a clear, itemised understanding of costs — medical and legal — before proceeding is essential, and we will provide this as part of a full consultation once eligibility has been confirmed.

Whatever the legal route by which a surrogate is identified, the medical screening she undergoes is rigorous. It typically includes a detailed medical history and physical examination, assessment of uterine health and prior pregnancy history, infectious disease testing, and psychological evaluation to confirm she understands the arrangement and is participating with genuinely informed consent. Only a surrogate assessed as medically and psychologically suitable proceeds to treatment.

The medical process itself begins once embryos have been created through an IVF cycle using the intending parents’ (or approved donor) eggs and sperm. The surrogate’s uterine lining is prepared, typically with hormone medication, in a manner similar to a frozen embryo transfer cycle, and a selected embryo is then transferred into her uterus. If implantation succeeds, she is monitored through pregnancy with the same antenatal care any pregnant woman would receive, with particular attention given to the medical context of the pregnancy.

Throughout, the surrogate’s health and wellbeing are managed with the same clinical seriousness as any other patient’s — she is a patient in her own right throughout the pregnancy, not solely a means to an end for the intending parents.

A surrogacy arrangement is not complete when a child is born; establishing the intending parents’ legal parentage is a distinct and necessary legal step, governed by the same regulatory framework and requiring its own documentation, typically arranged before the pregnancy begins and finalised after birth. The specific legal steps, documents, and timelines required to establish parentage are matters for qualified legal counsel, not this page, and intending parents should have a clear legal plan in place, agreed with their lawyer, before treatment starts — not after the child is born.

We coordinate closely with the legal professionals involved in each arrangement so that the medical and legal timelines proceed together, but the legal process itself sits outside our clinical role.