A WHITE British woman has given birth to an Asian baby as a surrogate mother for a childless couple.

The baby boy, now three months old, is genetically the child of the Asian mother and father. The embryo was created using her egg and his sperm.

The surrogate spoke this weekend about giving birth to a baby of a different race, saying: “Colour wasn’t an issue for me. It didn’t make any difference.”

She is believed to be the first surrogate to go public in Britain about carrying a child for parents of a different race. The woman, who would give only her first name, Karen, works as a healthcare assistant in southeast England.

Karen disclosed she is about to start treatment to give the Asian couple a second child. The Asian woman is unable to give birth to a child herself.

There is a steady flow of white couples to India, where they pay for Asian surrogates to give birth to children, but it is highly unusual for a white surrogate to carry a child for an Asian couple.

Doctors say the arrangement may be to the advantage of the “commissioning” couple because the surrogate mother may be less likely to become attached to the baby, and even to refuse to give it up, if it belongs to a different race.

Professor Ian Craft, director of the London Fertility Centre, where the Asian couple were treated, said: “The major risk in surrogacy is that the surrogate mother may not want to yield the child. The surrogate is unlikely to want to keep a child of a different race. That is just human nature.”

Karen was put in touch with the Asian couple from London, by the surrogacy agency Cots. The couple do not wish to be identified while they are trying for a second child.

It will be the fourth time that Karen, who is in her late thirties, has acted as a surrogate mother if she succeeds in bearing a second child for the couple. She intends to go on to be a surrogate mother for a fifth time. She has also given birth to two girls for a white couple.

She became interested in becoming a surrogate mother after a friend had difficulty starting a family and Karen decided to help other women.

“All the way through the pregnancies I felt like a surrogate mum,” she said. “I never referred to any of the babies as ‘my baby’. If I felt the baby kick or move, I would always remind myself that it was someone else’s baby moving.”

Other known cases in which a white woman intended to carry an Asian child have ended in controversy. In 1991 a British woman was planning to give birth to a baby for an Asian couple after treatment at Bourn Hall clinic, near Cambridge. The contract was cancelled after the surrogate disclosed the plan to the media.

Last year an Asian couple launched a legal battle for custody of their twins after a white surrogate mother decided to keep the babies. The twins were later given to the couple in an out-of-court settlement.

There is a shortage of surrogate mothers, and an infertile couple can expect to pay £10,000 to have a woman bear their child. Couples who travel to India, however, can find a surrogate for about £3,000. For Indian women the payment, which can equate to 10 years’ salary, can be life-changing, allowing them to buy a house or an education for their own children.

If infertile couples are able to use their own eggs and sperm to create embryos the procedure, known as “host surrogacy”, is carried out at a fertility clinic. The surrogate takes an injection of hormonal drugs to prepare her womb for the couple’s embryo.

If the surrogate mother uses her own eggs she can fertilise the egg at home with a sperm sample from the husband or a donor, in a practice called “straight surrogacy”.

Pregnant issue

Kim Cotton became Britain’s first surrogate mother in 1985 and founded the surrogacy agency Cots.

There have been more than 500 babies born to surrogate mothers in Britain, with the birth rate now up to about 100 a year.

Couples pay surrogate mothers between £10,000 and £15,000 to give birth to their child. Legally this fee can only be for expenses but the payments are widely acknowledged as compensation for the trouble of pregnancy and birth.

Jill Hawkins, from Brighton, is this year set to become the most prolific surrogate living in Britain as she plans to carry her eighth baby for other couples.

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