Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Obstet Gynecol. Nov 10, 2015; 4(4): 102-107
Published online Nov 10, 2015. doi: 10.5317/wjog.v4.i4.102
Outcomes of surrogate pregnancies in California and hospital economics of surrogate maternity and newborn care
Yona Nicolau, Austin Purkeypile, T Allen Merritt, Mitchell Goldstein, Bryan Oshiro
Yona Nicolau, Austin Purkeypile, T Allen Merritt, Mitchell Goldstein, Bryan Oshiro, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, Loma Linda, CA 92354, United States
Yona Nicolau, Austin Purkeypile, T Allen Merritt, Mitchell Goldstein, Bryan Oshiro, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, Loma Linda, CA 92354, United States
Yona Nicolau, Austin Purkeypile, T Allen Merritt, Mitchell Goldstein, Bryan Oshiro, Office of Finance, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, Loma Linda, CA 92354, United States
Author contributions: Nicolau Y designed research, performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper; Purkeypile A designed research, performed research and contributed to analytic tools; Merritt TA designed research, performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper; Goldstein M designed research, performed research and analyzed data; Oshiro B designed research, performed research and wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The research was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Loma Linda University School of Medicine.
Informed consent statement: Written Informed consent was waived by Institutional Review Board of Loma Linda School of Medicine.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare not conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: The data contained in this manuscript has been approved for this use and cleared by all concerned parties.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yona Nicolau, MD, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, 11175 Campus St, Coleman Pavilion 11121, Loma Linda, CA 92354, United States. ynicolau@llu.edu
Telephone: +1-909-5587448 Fax: +1-909-5580298
Received: March 26, 2015
Peer-review started: March 28, 2015
First decision: June 3, 2015
Revised: June 15, 2015
Accepted: August 4, 2015
Article in press: August 7, 2015
Published online: November 10, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Surrogate pregnancies result in higher maternity and newborn costs with increased rates of multiple births and creates a moral hazard for hospitals. This increase occurs despite of the fact that surrogate mothers are prescreened for health and reproductive ability. Reduction in multiple embryo transfer would reduce the adverse economic impact of surrogate pregnancy, maternity and newborn costs.