Thorough Screening: The Key to a Faster, Safer Surrogacy Journey
A thorough surrogate screening process is essential to reduce the risk of failed matches and protect both intended parents and surrogates from unnecessary emotional and financial strain. By ensuring all six steps are completed before matching, surrogacy agencies can significantly increase the chances of a successful and smooth journey for everyone involved.
To illustrate the thorough screening our surrogates undergo vs. most other agencies and where they match families like you in relation to screening, take a look at the comparison below.
It's important to understand that most other agencies match you with an underscreened surrogate, impacting their chances of qualifying and, ultimately, your success. When time and success matter most, you don't deserve to wait longer while you attempt to find a qualified surrogate.
Below, you can learn more about the 6 important steps of the surrogate screening process that translate to your time and success.
The Surrogate Screening Process: Ensuring Successful Matches
A surrogate should go through five crucial screening steps before being matched with intended parents (IPs). Unfortunately, many surrogacy programs match after only the first screening step, which often results in a higher failure rate, costing you time and money.
You deserve to work with a surrogacy agency that waits to match until all five steps have been completed.
The Surrogate Screen Process
Before you continue, we are always here to give you a complete breakdown and explain our screening process to better understand how it saves you time and money and avoids unnecessary emotional disappointment.
Step 1: Initial Basic Screening (ASRM Guidelines)
This step helps identify the most common disqualifiers early on, including:
- A history of at least one prior pregnancy and parenting a child at home
- Body Mass Index (BMI) requirements
- Age
- Tobacco use
- Medication use
- Pregnancy complications
- Education level
- Financial stability or reliance on state assistance
- Criminal history
Click here to learn more about basic qualification requirements.
Step 2: Social Questionnaire, Interviews, and Home Assessment
This stage evaluates the candidate's social environment and life circumstances for any potential red flags. Key areas of assessment include:
- Family support for the surrogacy journey
- The ability to balance surrogacy with work, children, and other responsibilities
- Whether any previous trauma has been properly addressed
- A detailed review of her pregnancy and postpartum history
- Personal medical history, including current medications or drug use
- Her motivation for becoming a surrogate
- Openness to key matching factors such as termination policies, family type, location, travel requirements, timing, and compensation
- Likelihood of being easily matched based on these factors
Step 3: Medical Records Review
A comprehensive review of the candidate’s medical history is conducted, focusing on issues that fertility clinics typically reject. These may include:
- History of preeclampsia
- Medicated gestational diabetes
- Prior postpartum hemorrhage
- Placenta complications
- Other significant medical conditions
Step 4: Criminal and Background Checks
This step investigates any criminal or financial history that could raise concerns, including:
- Felony convictions or other serious legal issues
- History of bankruptcies or liens (disqualification on a case-by-case basis)
- Verification of address and phone number history
Step 5: Psychological Testing and Counseling
The surrogate undergoes a psychological evaluation to ensure she is emotionally and mentally ready for the surrogacy journey. Areas of focus include:
- Past trauma and whether it has been adequately treated
- History of postpartum depression
- Risks to the surrogate’s health, such as potential infertility
- Alignment between the surrogate and her spouse on key decisions
- Discussion of her matching preferences and how they might affect her journey
- Personality markers from the Psychological Assessment Inventory (PAI) that could impact compatibility with surrogacy
Step 6: Intended Parents’ Clinic Review
Once the surrogate has passed all five previous steps, the intended parent’s fertility clinic will review her medical records and schedule a physical consultation to confirm her medical eligibility for the surrogacy process.
Upon passing this stage of the complete screening process, you can begin the medical process and take a giant step toward your dream of parenthood. Our surrogates are thoroughly screened before matching and ready to move forward to the fertility clinic medical screening. This saves you up to 90 days in your overall journey. If you're ready to get more information on our services or to pursue surrogacy for your family, contact us today.