Skip to main content
An official website of the United States government
Español
Government Funding Lapse
Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.

The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov.

Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at opm.gov.

surrogate pregnancy

(SER-uh-gut PREG-nun-see)
A type of pregnancy in which a woman carries and gives birth to a baby for a person who is not able to have children. In a surrogate pregnancy, eggs from the woman who will carry the baby or from an egg donor are fertilized with sperm from a sperm donor to make an embryo. The embryo is implanted in the uterus of the surrogate mother, who carries the baby until birth. Surrogate pregnancy may be an option for men or women who want to have children and have had certain anticancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, that can cause infertility.
Search NCI's Dictionary of Cancer Terms