How Blood Types Affect Surrogacy – Made in the USA Surrogacy in Roseville, California
If you’re thinking about becoming a surrogate with a surrogate agency, then you may wonder if your blood type matters. Does it affect whether or not you will have a healthy pregnancy? Can you become pregnant at all if your blood type is different from the baby’s? This article will go over blood types and what you need to know about them.
The Main Types of Blood Types
One of the first important aspects to understand about blood types is how many there are. There are three main types of blood–A, B, and O. Each parent carries two alleles for blood type. They may be AA, AB, BB, OA, OB, or OO. OA and OB act just like AA or BB, so they’re typically just written as either A or B.
This limits the alleles to AA, AB, BB, or O. When two parents have a baby, they pass one copy of their alleles to the baby. Parent A may have O while Parent B may have AA. In this case, the baby would have OA. That would then translate to having A blood type.
In the case of two parents having O, then their baby would also have an O blood type.
For parents that have A and B, then their child would have an AB blood type.
Rhesus Factor
Another important facet of blood type is the Rh or Rhesus Factor. This is the negative or positive sign that goes with blood type. For example, you may be O+ or O-. There are three combinations for inheriting the Rhesus Factor. They are ++, +-, and –.
In regards to the Rhesus Factor, the + is always dominant. In genetics, this means that it is expressed instead of the recessive trait. An example of this would be hair color. If you receive an allele from your father that is dominant for black hair and a recessive allele from your mother for blond hair, then the dominant allele wins out. You’ll have black hair.
With the Rhesus Factor, this means that those with a +- Rh are basically just +. Like with blood type, the Rh is also determined through inheritance. If the father has a ++ and the mother has a –, then their child will have a +-. However, since + is always dominant, they’re basically a ++. It can be impossible to know if the child ended up with +- or ++ if both of its parents had +-.
How This Plays into Surrogacy
How does this impact the process of surrogacy and whether or not a surrogate will have a healthy pregnancy? Luckily, blood type, itself, doesn’t much matter in regards to if the surrogate will have a healthy pregnancy or not. That means that any woman of any blood type can become a surrogate with a surrogate agency. She just needs to pass the rest of the surrogate qualifications that a surrogacy agency put into place.
Even if the surrogate has a rare blood type like AB-, they can still join a surrogacy agency provided they pass the other surrogate qualifications.
The biggest pause comes with the Rh factor. This is the only facet of blood type that may cause problems during the process of surrogacy. If a surrogate has a different Rh than the baby, then it could cause problems.
This is called Rh sensitization. For those who are Rh-, it means that you don’t have an Rh marker. Rh+ blood types, however, do have the marker.
In the event that your Rh- mixes with Rh+ blood, your body will start to develop antibodies to fight off the blood cells. This response is called Rh sensitization.
In pregnancy, this can become an issue. Typically, most surrogates don’t have to worry about whether or not their blood will mix with the baby’s blood. The placenta keeps the baby protected from outside fluids attempting to get inside of it.
However, in rare cases, it is possible for the blood to somehow enter the fetus. This might be due to the placenta ripping, tearing, or somehow becoming injured. It can sometimes happen during testing of the baby as well. A medical probe might accidentally introduce the surrogate mother’s baby into the fetus when it pokes through the placenta to test the baby for something.
When this happens, the surrogate’s body will start to attack the baby. In untreated cases, the antibodies might kill the baby. If treated, however, it’s possible for the baby to be saved.
To prevent Rh sensitization, surrogate mothers can undergo something called Rh immune globulin. This medicine can help boost the immune system, so it doesn’t produce antibodies. It can also help stop excessive bleeding to limit the chance of the Rh- blood mixing with the Rh+ blood.
Rh sensitization can also make having a second baby impossible if it has Rh+ blood. This is because the body already recognizes Rh+ as a threat. The moment that the body detects the presence of Rh+ blood, the immune system will be activated to kill it. The antibodies will target the red blood cells of the baby and destroy them. This means it will be impossible for surrogates to carry a second baby with Rh+ blood unless they are treated for Rh sensitization.
Other Considerations
While the biggest risk to intended parents struggling with infertility is Rh, there is another consideration that they need to face when it comes to the actual blood type of the baby. The resulting blood type of the baby, when produced through an egg or sperm donor, may have an entirely different blood type than either of them.
In that case, they will be forced to one day explain to their child the truth of their origins. For some intended parents, this may be a conversation that they didn’t want to have. For others, it may have been a conversation that they wanted to have, but not until later in their child’s lives.
Using an egg donor with a different blood type from your own means that you will, very likely, one day, you’d have to explain your child’s origins to them. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however. It can open up the door to talking about concepts like infertility to your child. It may make them more sympathetic towards others who have difficulty with having children.
Yet if you are worried about having that conversation, then you can always look for an egg donor and surrogate who matches your blood type.
Find Your Surrogate at With our California Surrogate Agency
Whether you’re someone who wants to become a surrogate or you’re looking for a surrogate, then our California surrogate agency is the one to choose. We have tons of different women who are eager to become a surrogate with you. Our California surrogate agency takes great care in ensuring that all of our prospective surrogates pass qualifications that will determine whether or not she is healthy to be a surrogate.
When it comes to blood type, your fertility clinic will do all of the testing necessary for your surrogate’s blood type and even your egg donor’s blood type to make sure it is compatible with an embryo transfer.
