Attachment and surrogacy | Tips for intended parents and surrogates

Introduction

When it comes to surrogacy, Intended parents, surrogates and egg donors often ask themselves: 

"What can we do to ensure that the future child grows up as happy and healthy as possible?"  

Attachment has a major role to play here.  

Attachment plays a key role in the development of any child. Attachment is the emotional bond that parents have with their child from the very beginning and which they continue to build. 

Surrogacy makes this somewhat unusual: multiple people can contribute from the very beginning to a safe emotional foundation.  

On this page we explain what attachment is, its importance in surrogacy, and how you can consciously foster it as an intended parent, a surrogate or an egg donor. 

Table of contents for this page

• What is attachment and why does it matter?
• Secure attachment
• Insecure attachment
• Attachment and genetic parenthood
• Attachment and non-genetic parenthood
• Attachment from the very beginning
• There's room for everyone
• There's enough love for everyone
• Attachment, grief, loss, and the desire to have children
• Fear of getting over-attached
• Read more

What is attachment and why does it matter?

This is the deep emotional bond which develops between children and the important people who look after them. Attachment begins as early as fertilisation. It plays an important role in the: 

• Emotional development of the child
• Social development of the child
• Physical development of the child 

In whatever type of family a child grows up, it's hugely important to foster secure attachment.

Secure attachment

Secure attachment develops when a child's basic needs are consistently lovingly met. Basic needs include: 

• Feeding
• Security
• Comfort
• Care  

This provides the child with a feeling of trust in other people, the world, but above all themselves.  

As a parent, it is therefore important:  

• To be sensitive, which means that you pay attention to what the child needs
• That you react in the right way to your child's needs
• That you see, acknowledge and name your child's emotions
• That you can help your child manage their emotions
• That you're available. That means that a child can rely on you. You're consistently present in a stimulating and supportive way  

Secure attachment between a parent and child lays the foundations for feelings of safety and trust. A child with secure attachment will dare to explore an unfamiliar environment. They will return to the parent when things gets scary.  

The parents are the safe haven from which the child ventures out to explore and learns to recognise their personal boundaries.  

Children with secure attachment have deeply established trust that their parent will return after a short absence. Children develop most happily when they can attach securely to their parents and everyone else involved in their development.

Because secure attachment has such a positive influence on a child's development, it's particularly important in diverse family make-ups, such as surrogacy, to think from the outset about what you can do to foster secure attachment.

Get yourself the support of a specialised surrogacy counsellor. Find out more about surrogacy counselling.

Insecure attachment

If a child is not securely attached, it can have short- and long-term effects on their development. They: 

• Can find it difficult to trust others, because they have the experience that their needs are not always met
• Generally approach life with greater anxiety and insecurity
• Develop poor self-image and feel that they are not good enough 

In the short term, the effects can be seen in their behaviour. For example, a child's behaviour may be: 

• Avoidant
• Demanding
• Impulsive
• Aggressive
• Withdrawn 

In the long term, the child may suffer from:  

• Concentration difficulties
• Reduced perseverance
• Difficulties building and maintaining (romantic) relationships 

Because secure attachment has such a positive influence on a child's development, it's particularly important in diverse family make-ups, such as surrogacy, to think from the outset about what you can do to foster secure attachment.

Get yourself the support of a specialist surrogacy counsellor. Find out more about surrogacy counselling.

Attachment and genetic parenthood

Some parents consider blood ties important; genetic parenthood. Others consider it less important.   

If you are genetically related, you may have the same physical characteristics and personality traits. This ensures:  

• Mutual recognition
• Understanding
• Predictability
• Security 

This recognition can help children understand themselves better. They understand why they behave in a certain way. It gives them a greater understanding of who they are. It's part of their identity.

Identity

Clarity about genetic ties and an ability to learn about one's genetic origins is important to the child's identity development. But it isn't important for the child's secure attachment. 

Studies of children who've grown up in two-mother families have shown that children can attach just as securely to the genetic parent as a non-genetic one. 

Attachment and non-genetic parenthood

However, non-genetic parents can sometimes feel more vulnerable in parenthood than genetic ones. This vulnerability can stem from: 

• Personal experience
• From the questions and reactions of someone close to them.  

It is important to pay heed to these feelings within your relationship, so that you can address them together. If you notice these feelings cropping up more and more, we recommend talking to a specialised surrogacy counsellor. With the counsellor, you can explore this vulnerability together and how you can help each other to become more secure in your parenting. This benefits attachment.

Listen to Regina's entire story (in Dutch) in the podcast DNAzaten aflevering 2

Attachment from the very beginning

Surrogate 

Most surrogates develop a strong bond with the child they carry in their womb. They feel connected to the child, want them to develop healthy and feel loving and protective towards them. The surrogates often feel responsible and want the future child to turn out well.  

Child 

The child also forms an attachment to the surrogate during pregnancy. The child is familiar with the sound of her heartbeat, empathises with her movements and moods, and gets accustomed to the sound of her voice and those of the people with whom she spends the most time. Feeling wanted as early as pregnancy, not only by your own parents, but also by your surrogate mother, is of great importance in fostering secure attachment.   

After the birth 

After the pregnancy, there's often a special bond between the child and the surrogate. It's of great importance to honour the existence of this connection and to allow the surrogate (and her family) the space to transfer the child to its parents.  

It's important to introduce the child to the world outside the safety of the womb with the greatest of care. This is best done in an environment where the child feels safe and secure. In sessions with a specialised counsellor, you will focus how you envision this period and what birth experience you want to provide your child.

Contact with the child

During feeding

Contact during feeding is important for attachment. It's important to think about how you want to organise this. Ensure that you're properly informed about feeding and attachment before taking any feeding decisions. There are several options. For more information, please visit:

Feeding after the birth 

Other contact

It's not only contact during feeding that matters for attachment. Think about other care moments too:

• Bath time
• Nappy changes
• Getting dressed
• Playtime
• Bedtime
• Comforting

Intended parents 

The intended parents can also work upon their attachment relationship to the child during pregnancy. It is impotant that they feel emotionally connected to their child during the pregnancy and that they grow attached to the idea that a child is coming.  

In practice, we see that some parents have a vivid mental image of the arrival of a child. They feel connected to the image of a child on its way and already imagine daily life with their child.  

Other parents struggle to conjure up a lively mental picture of this. For sure, parents who've already gone through a long (medical) journey can find it hard to feel that there's a child on its way. It's good to understand and be aware of this. There are various ways you can go about feeling closer to the child you're going to have. See which suits you best. 

Suggestions/ tips:  

• Make a recording of your voices and ask the surrogate if she'd be willing to play it regularly, even when you're not around.
• Attending pregnancy check-ups and scans
• Attending a prenatal class together
• Making a photo album or journal that you can later share with your child.
• Decorating a nursery
• Buying layette
• Supporting the surrogate's family when difficulties crop up during the pregnancy 

It's important for the parents and surrogate to think together, before the pregnancy, about what you can do to foster feelings of connection and closeness. Good preparation matters.  

The support of a specialised surrogacy counsellor is indispensable here too. The specialised counsellor can ask the right questions about topics you haven't even thought of.

There's room for everyone

Surrogacy is a type of family in which multiple people are part of the family's story.  

• Surrogate
• The surrogate's partner, if present
• The surrogate's children, if present
• Other family members of the surrogate (parents, brothers, sisters, etc.), if present
• Egg donor, if present
• The egg donor's partner, if present
• The egg donor's children, if present
• Other family members of the egg donor (parents, brothers, sisters, etc.), if present

Everyone 

Sometimes you need to figure out who holds what place and position within the family, especially when the genetic, legal, and social roles in relation to the child are distinct.  

Feelings of jealousy, competition or interference can arise as a result. These are very human feelings, but can be experienced as painful or unpleasant. But if you don't talk about these feelings, they can build up. 

In the long term, they can have a negative impact on the relationships between people. We therefore recommend talking openly about negative feelings. This should start during the preparatory stage: 

• Talk about the possibility of these feelings arising
• Express to each other that these feelings are normal and should be given space
• A specialised surrogacy counsellor can really help you steer this conversation in the right way during the preparatory stage  

These feelings can still occur despite thorough preparation with a specialised counsellor. Don't suppress them. Acknowledge their existence. Dare to talk about them. This can be quite difficult. 

• You can begin by talking about them to someone close to you. This can help make them easier to discuss more widely
• A specialised surrogacy counsellor can help you make space for these feelings and work with you on how to deal with them

There's enough love for everyone

Parents:

• Parents have enough love for several children.
• When a new baby comes into a family, it doesn't mean that there's less love for the child who is already there. 

Children:  

• Children can have multiple people in their lives for who they feel love. (For example, a surrogate mother, the egg donor and/or their families)
• This love doesn't come at the expense of their love for their parents.  

What matters to children: 

• That they're allowed to love someone
• That they are free to build a bond with everyone who belongs to them in some way or other 

It is complicated for children: 

• When they feel that their parents struggle with them having a bond with their surrogate mother or egg donor and their families.
• When they feel that their parents struggle with their desire to have contact with the other people involved in their origin story 

Children then find themselves in a conflict of loyalty.  

They want to build a bond with the surrogate and/or the egg donor, but sense that this is complicated for their parents. Long-term conflicts of loyalty can lead to psychological issues including: 

• Stress
• Concentration difficulties
• Anxiety and/or panic.  

No parent ever wants that for their child. Therefore, it's important for everyone who opts for surrogacy (the egg donor, the surrogate, the intended parents) to give the child the space to create bonds with the surrogate and egg donor and their families. How this looks in practice depends, of course, from family to family.  

This can change over time. The child's needs may evolve. Talk about this during your preparations, i.e. before trying to get pregnant. A specialised counsellor is well-equipped to support you in this conversation and ask the right questions. 

Also visit talking about surrogacy

In this video, Jermain tells his full story (in Dutch)

Attachment, grief, loss, and the desire to have children

As a human being, you can become attached to: 

• People
• Situations
• A vision of the future  

It may be that you, consciously or unconsciously, have got attached to a vision of the future in which you and your partner have a child who carries both your genes. 

You may also have got attached to the idea of seeing particular physical characteristics or personality traits in your children. Or that you wouldn't need any assistance in fulfilling your desire to have children. 

When it transpires that you will never be able to realise your vision of the future in the way you had imagined or expected, due, for example, to a fertility issue, it can prompt feelings of loss or grief. A man too, who may have known for some time that he wants to share his life with a male partner, may also experience feelings of grief.   

These feelings are very normal. To be able to get attached to a new vision of the future and be emotionally available, you need to allow yourself to process your grief properly.  

You need to have finished processing your grief before embarking on a surrogacy journey. A specialised surrogacy counsellor can assess whether you have sufficiently processed your grief and can support you in processing it. 

Fear of getting over-attached

There are a lot of choices to be made at the stage where intended parents are exploring surrogacy. One of many decisions is which form of surrogacy to choose. The surrogate is going to carry a child: 

• Using her own egg (the child will be genetically related to the surrogate) or
• Using someone else's egg (the child will not be genetically related to the surrogate)  

Sometimes a surrogate doesn't want to carry a child using her own egg because it feels uncomfortably close. She's afraid of getting over-attached to the child. The intended parents can also be afraid that the surrogate will be too attached to the child and that she won't be able to relinquish them properly to the intended parents after the birth. 

First and foremost, it's important to emphasise that these feelings are normal. It's good to talk about them openly. Share your fears and anxieties with one another or with someone close to you who you trust. It takes quite some courage to reflect and talk about these emotions, but experience shows that expressing your concerns can provide a great deal of relief and actually increases mutual trust.  

It's important to be properly informed about the medical risks associated with getting pregnant not using your own egg. (See medical page) It's important to weigh this up in your decision.  

Other reasons for carrying a child not genetically related to the surrogate can be:   

• The surrogate carries a child who is genetically related to both intended parents
• A medical aspect can play a part too, if, for example, the surrogate:
  • Doesn't have any viable eggs left
  • Carries a genetic abnormality she doesn't want to pass on to the child. 

There are no studies that show that the surrogate's attachment is greater when she becomes pregnant with a genetically related child than with a genetically unrelated child. Even surrogates for a child who is not genetically related to them get attached.

In any event, a certain type of attachment occurs during and after the pregnancy between the surrogate and child. Although your brain knows that you are going to transfer the baby to the intended parents, your body goes through another process. Your body feels the child growing and you produce hormones including the cuddling hormone, oxytocin. You can experience a deep bond, sometimes without expecting it. These are very normal feelings.  

This attachment can be experienced as a threat to the attachment to the parents. As we saw above, this threat is unfounded. It's very important for children that the surrogate bond with the child and for the child to bond with the surrogate too. Psychosocial support from an specialised surrogacy counsellor can help forge a path forward together in this process. 

Read more

The text is based upon: 

Carone, N., Quintigliano, M., Benzi, I. M. A., Brumariu, L. E., Speranza, A. M., & Lingiardi, V. (2025). Parental sensitivity and child–parent attachment security in lesbian and gay parent families through assisted reproduction. Journal of Family Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001324 

Also visit:

Psychological aspects of surrogacy

Family after surrogacy

Talking about surrogacy