India is attracting English-speaking couples looking for surrogates and other treatments.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Silvia Spring
Newsweek
Updated: 4:49 p.m. ET April 12, 2006
April 12, 2006 - When it comes to new ways to promote fertility, Bobby and Nikki Bains have been open-minded. They’ve tried herbal medicine, prayer, astrologers, soothsayers and babajis, the Hindu spiritual figures. They put a sign in their car windshield that read $18,000 FOR A SURROGATE TO CARRY OUR BABY. After five failed rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment and two years of searching for a surrogate in Britain, the couple finally found an option they feel comfortable with: hiring an Indian woman to carry their child. Advertisements in several Indian newspapers led them to a willing surrogate whom Nikki describes as “very nice.” “She looked like the most compatible one for us,” she says, “She’s petite, and I’m petite, as well, and we have the same skin color.”
The Bainses are part of a burgeoning fertility tourism trade. Cheaper prices, high-quality health care and the availability of donor eggs and surrogates are drawing an increasing number of couples to Thailand, Eastern Europe, Russia, China and India. In the English-speaking world, India has a big advantage because of the availability of English-speaking doctors. The number of surrogate births in India has more than doubled in the past three years, fertility clinics report. And Indian clinics are performing a growing number of IVF treatments for foreigners frustrated with disappointing results and soaring costs at home. By some counts, the industry brings more than $450 million a year into India. British and American couples in particular make up a big part of the recent influx of foreigners. The number of Brits and Americans coming to Malpani Infertility Clinic in Bombay has jumped dramatically in the past three years, says Dr. Anirruddha Malpani, the director. About 15 percent of his patients are now foreigners with no family connection to India.
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