Attitudes of Infertile Women towards Surrogacy in Infertility Clinics of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Infertility is one of the important issues related to reproductive health, which can cause a lot of problems in family life. Assisted reproductive techniques have played an important role in treatment of infertility during the past three decades. One of these methods is surrogacy, which has caused many challenges in relationships and personal lives of those involved. This study aimed to investigate the attitude of infertile women towards surrogacy and its probable challenges.
This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 160 infertile women referring to Shahid Motahari clinic in Shiraz selected through convenience sampling. The study data were collected using a 20-item questionnaire that assessed infertile women’s challenges and concerns about surrogacy. Finally, the data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software, version 14.
The results showed that 72.5% of the infertile women had negative attitudes and the rest had positive attitudes towards surrogacy. Indeed, the women’s main concerns about using this method were incompatibility with culture and religion, child’s potential problems, surrogate mother’s probable abuse, threats to relationship with one’s husband, and decreased sense of belonging to the child.
The study results showed that nearly two thirds of the women had negative attitudes towards surrogacy. The main concerns included incompatibility with culture and religion, child’s potential problems, surrogate mother’s probable abuse, threats to relationship with one’s husband, and decreased sense of belonging to the child. Therefore, educational workshops are recommended to be held to improve women’s attitudes towards this issue.