Banned For Animals, But Celebrated for Children?
How surrogacy deprives children of their mother and rewires their brains
Last month, I debated a two-time (and currently pregnant) surrogate about the ethics of intentionally separating children from their birth mothers. Early in the conversation, she stated that reproductive technologies, including surrogacy, can be “empowering” for the surrogate, the intended parents, and even the baby.
For the baby? I asked.
Check out our debate here:
She said that she wasn’t bonding with the baby. The problem, I told her, is that the baby is bonding with YOU. Even if a child goes home with his or her genetic parents, on the day they are born, those adults are just two strangers among eight billion. It’s the birth mother, the surrogate, with whom the baby has bonded. She’s the only thing the baby wants and the only person the baby knows.
That one person– whether she’s the genetic mother’s sister who altruistically carried the pregnancy, a trafficked Argentinian woman, or a suburban mom pulling in $100,000 for a celebrity couple– is the one woman whose scent the baby can identify within seconds. The one woman whose skin calms the baby’s stress. The one woman whose milk helps regulate the child’s fragile systems.
Surrogacy dismisses this woman as the “gestational carrier,” a sort of long-term babysitter, the “oven” for someone else’s “bun.” But for the baby? That woman is his or her mother.
Human Studies: Birth Mothers Regulate Infant Physiology
Researchers have spent decades confirming what mothers have known since Eve: Babies are biologically wired to recognize and want the woman who bore them.
Here’s what the research on human infants concludes:
In a 2020 Breastfeeding Medicine trial, infants who smelled their own mother’s milk during a heel-prick showed significantly lower stress hormones than those exposed to formula odor (Tasci et al., 2020).
Preterm infants who received near-continuous skin-to-skin contact with their mothers had far lower cortisol reactivity a month later (Mörelius et al., 2015), proving that maternal touch quiets the infant’s stress system. Yes, skin-to-skin connection with the father also helped, but can that exist (in the case of gay men who purchase children, for example) without also having skin-to-skin contact and care from mom?
A 2025 BMC Pediatrics meta-analysis of seven trials confirmed the same pattern: exposure to a mother’s milk odor reduces neonatal pain and stress scores (Laleh et al., 2025). Some might argue that this means if a single man or gay dads could just get her milk in a freezer, as Dave Rubin said in his conversation with Jordan Peterson (we have extra freezers full of breast milk), the child would have the same benefits. But can the same benefits of mother’s milk exist completely removed from contact with the mother?
Newborns placed skin-to-skin with their mothers after cesarean births stabilized faster, cried less, and entered quiet-alert states more quickly than those placed with fathers (Velandia et al.,2012), demonstrating that mothers are not interchangeable, even with loving dads.
Maternal emotional availability at bedtime predicts lower infant cortisol and healthier stress regulation in early months (Philbrook et al., 2014), and consistent maternal nurturing through the first year continues to shape a baby’s physiology for peace (Philbrook et al., 2016).
Studies confirm newborns can identify their mother’s scent within two days of birth, crawling toward it instinctively and distinguishing it from other women’s odors (Varendi et al., 2001; Marin et al., 2015). This bond forms almost instantly, before language and before memory, through smell, skin, and heartbeat.
A birth mother’s smell, skin, and milk are not interchangeable. They are nature’s first medicine for a baby’s body and brain (Porter et al., 1999; Widström et al., 2019).
Taken together, these studies clearly demonstrate that a newborn’s biology is organized around the woman who carried and birthed him or her. Her scent, skin, and milk actively stabilize and protect the baby’s brain and body. When that connection is missing, even briefly, the infant’s stress response intensifies, and their development is put at measurable risk.
Whenever tragedy separates a child from this mother - through death, incarceration, or abandonment - we call it a tragedy, and responsible, extended family, or adoptive parents rush in to heal the wound. Surrogacy creates that wound on purpose - for profit or convenience - and calls it compassion.
Animal Studies: Maternal Separation Rewires the Brain
The data on the importance of an immediate and ongoing connection with the birth mother is resounding.
But note: we don’t have a lot of studies on extended periods of maternal deprivation and human newborns. Why is that? Because it’s dangerous, cruel, and unethical to run those trials on human children. Most of the data we have on the damaging effects of maternal separation comes from rodents. Even though humans are more complex, rats and mice share:
The same basic brain structures (amygdala, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, etc.)
The same stress system (HPA axis)
Similar neurochemicals for emotion and bonding (like oxytocin)
A comparable postnatal brain-growth timeline
To study the impact of the mother/child bond in animal research, scientists use something called the Maternal Separation and Unpredictable Stress (MSUS) model. Researchers take baby mice away from their mothers at various times and for various durations to measure the impact of mother loss. The result? A level of trauma so severe that it often reshapes the animal’s brain for life.
Here’s a sampling:
Plotsky et al., 1993 – Rat pups separated three hours/day during the first 2 weeks of life cause a permanently over-activated stress system.
Meaning: Their brains get stuck in “high alert mode” for life.
Weaver et al. 2004 – Pups with little maternal care (similar effects to separation) led to fewer stress-regulating receptors in the hippocampus.
Meaning: Their brains struggle to calm down after stress.
Fabricius et al., 2008 – Single 24-hour separation of mouse pups led to a ~20% loss of neurons in the dentate gyrus (memory/stress control region).
Meaning: Separation kills brain cells needed for learning and handling anxiety.
Aleksic et al. 2023 – Early separation in rats led to fewer inhibitory neurons in the amygdala and nucleus accumbens.
Meaning: The emotional brain loses its “brakes,” leading to more fear and impulsivity.
Ou-Yang et al. 2022 (meta-analysis) – Across rodent studies, maternal separation led to major deficits in cognitive flexibility.
Meaning: Harder time adapting, problem-solving, and “switching gears” mentally.
Wang et al. 2020 (meta-analysis) – Consistent separation led to a strong increase in anxiety-like behaviors.
Meaning: Separated rodents grow up more fearful and stressed.
Yurtdas et al. 2023 – Separation in rats led to brain inflammation and depression-like behavior (less movement, more despair).
Meaning: The brain reacts like the animal is under constant threat.
Baram / Nishi / Abraham reviews (2020–2024) – Maternal separation across dozens of studies led to structural damage in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, plus emotional brain dysregulation.
Meaning: The whole stress-and-emotion network of the brain is altered.
These studies show that mother loss in early life doesn’t just upset infant animals in the moment - it rewires the developing brain. Separation from mom reliably creates long-term changes in stress regulation, learning, emotional control, and even gene expression, leaving the offspring more anxious, less adaptable, and biologically predisposed to struggle for life.
Scientists may study the lower mammals to determine the harm of maternal deprivation. But they won’t do it to “fur babies.” The Federal Animal Welfare Act prohibits taking puppies and kittens from their mother before the age of eight weeks. And yet, some surrogate-born children are never even held by their birth mother and certainly don’t get eight weeks with her. We ban this kind of cruelty for puppies, but legalize it in delivery rooms.
Following the Science Means Protecting the Mother-Child Bond
Culture increasingly promotes the idea that pregnancy can be outsourced. But science keeps telling the truth: whether or not she is genetically related, babies need their birth mothers.
• Her scent reduces stress
• Her skin regulates vital functions
• Her milk heals the brain
• Her absence causes measurable damage
Surrogacy doesn’t just ignore maternal biology. It commodifies it. It guarantees beginning a child’s life with trauma via contract and treats humans as products to be purchased.
Policy Must Follow Evidence
We already have the data. We know maternal separation harms mammalian children, including the smallest humans. The only question left is, will we “follow the science” and act on it? Will we be a society that puts children first - or one that commercializes their first and most formative relationship? Will we be a society that protects the vulnerable - or one that ensures the weakest pay the highest price so the strong can get what they want?
At Them Before Us, our stance is unwavering: Children’s rights - not adult desires - must draw the boundaries around reproductive technology. Every child has a right to be known, loved, and have an unbroken bond with the woman in whose body they grew for nine months. Their psychological and emotional health depends on it. Intentionally taking that away is not altruism. It’s an injustice.
Them Before Us is a global movement committed to defending children’s right to their mother and father. We believe that adult desires should never come at the expense of a child’s fundamental needs.
We are not professional lobbyists or political insiders. We are ordinary people with an extraordinary conviction: children must come first in every conversation about marriage, family, and fertility. We exist to make one thing clear: when adults sacrifice for children, society thrives. When children are forced to sacrifice for adults, everyone pays the price.
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For the surrogate mom to say that there is no bonding with the baby is exactly the problem. The baby knows if they are wanted and loved even while in the womb. If the mother (carrier) isn’t bonding with the baby, then the baby doesn’t feel safe and can have many long term neurological consequences as a result.
I would think that long term studies of children adopted at birth and children from surrogate mothers would give us many insights scientifically. We were actually part of a long term study like this after we adopted our daughter. I’ll see if I can find it and link it to this post.
Unfortunately, our adopted-at-birth child has many (if not all) of the issues you listed in animal studies. It’s heartbreaking to see her struggle so much even though we did all the bonding things possible - including me breast feeding her.
It's an upside down world that elevates animals above humans, empathy above reality, and feelings above facts. We are entirely too focused, as a society, on self-fulfillment.