We need a medical report from your GP before you can become a Member. Don’t worry if you have any medical conditions: some will have no impact at all on whether or not you can be a surrogate mother. Your GP will indicate if any health problems are relevant to surrogacy, and if necessary can arrange an appointment with a specialist for further advice.
To make things easier, you’ll find a letter in the Application Pack that you fill out and give to your GP. The letter explains to your GP what information is needed so they can write the report. GPs sometimes do this for free and sometimes they charge; if they do ask for a fee, don’t worry: we’ll cover the cost. Just send us their invoice, and we’ll either refund it to you, or pay the bill directly with the GP, whichever you prefer.

On the application form we ask for your height and your weight. This is because obesity can increase the risks of complications in pregnancy, and some IVF clinics are reluctant to provide treatment for host surrogates with a high BMI (Body Mass Index). Your BMI is your weight in kilos, divided by your height in meters squared. A BMI higher than 30 may be problematic for host surrogacy, though IVF clinics vary in their policies.
For straight surrogacy there are no hard-and-fast rules, so it would be up to individual IPs and Surrogate Mothers to make a decision about whether to proceed. Please get in touch if you want to discuss this further.

We have a minimum age of 23 for Surrogate Mothers, unless there are exceptional circumstances. We don’t have a maximum age, but bear in mind that the risks of pregnancy may increase over the age of about 35, and some IVF clinics do impose restrictions of their own. Feel free to contact us for a chat about this.

Surrogate Mothers and their partners (if they have one) are required to provide criminal records checks. You may have had one for your work (usually via the Criminal Records Bureau or CRB) and a CRB certificate less than 12 months old will be accepted for your membership. If you don't already have a CRB certificate, you can obtain a new criminal records check from Disclosure Scotland. We can send you the forms, and we'll pay the fee on your behalf. The type of form you need to ask for is a 'basic disclosure'. Please send us the original document: we will note that it has been seen and return it to you.

If you are only considering Host Surrogacy, you don’t need to organise sexual health checks at this stage: the IVF clinic that you and your IPs use will sort all this out. However if you are considering Straight Surrogacy, you’ll need to organise sexual health checks before you join. Getting the tests done is easy, and there are three ways available:
1. What sort of surrogacy relationship are the Intended Parents looking to enter into: Straight or Host?
2. At your local Sexual Health / GUM clinic.
3. At your GP’s surgery (some but not all will be able to do this).
4. Using a home-test kit that is sent to The Doctors’ Laboratory.
Tests for genital herpes are not always available, so we ask you to let us know if you have ever had an outbreak of the infection in the past. This is very important. The tests may need to be repeated before you start inseminations, depending on how much time passes between these tests and starting to work with your IPs. At that point it may also be agreed that your partner (if you have one) should be tested. These decisions will be discussed at your agreement session.

Once we’ve received your completed Application Pack, we’ll get in touch to arrange your face-to-face Information Session. You can have this at your own home, or somewhere else if you’d prefer, and it’s a chance to talk everything through with one of our experienced Surrogate Members.