World’s first ‘baby factory: Inside India’s home for surrogate mothers

Willing workers: Dr Nayna Patel (front, centre) with surrogate mothers at her clinic (Picture: SWNS)

Expecting: Surrogate Papiya will get a bigger fee after scans showed she was pregnant with twins 

(Picture: SWNS)

The world’s first ‘baby factory’ will house hundreds of surrogate mothers as they carry infants to term for couples in the West.
The multi-million-pound complex – which will have a gift shop and hotel rooms for people coming to collect newborns – is being built in India by controversial doctor Nayna Patel.

One floor will be home to the surrogates, who make babies for a fee as a way of escaping extreme poverty.
They will be impregnated using sperm and embryos sent by courier, with childless couples often visiting India only to pick up their new son or daughter.

Dr Patel – who has a back street clinic that puts up 100 surrogates in a single house – has faced death threats from people who accuse her of exploiting the poor for profit. But she views her work as a ‘feminist mission’ to bring needy women together with would-be mothers who are unable to conceive.

‘These woman are doing a job,’ she said. ‘It’s a physical job. They are paid for that job.

‘These women know there is no gain without pain. I definitely see myself as a feminist. Surrogacy is one woman helping another.’

The doctor – whose expansion plans were revealed in a BBC4 documentary – pays surrogates £4,950 and takes £28,000 from childless couples.

She has delivered nearly 600 babies for her wealthy clients in the decade the programme has been running in rural Gujarat. A British doctor named as Michael, 62, spoke to the BBC after going to the clinic with Russian wife Veronica, 33, who is infertile.

‘Procedures are sterile and it’s no different to what I’m used to in the Western world,’ he said.

Surrogate Papiya is expecting twins for a US couple and plans to buy a house. ‘Having twins means we get a bigger fee,’ she said. ‘Last time I was a surrogate I bought white goods, a car and lent some to my sister-in-law.’