Birthing a Mother: The Surrogate Body and the Pregnant Self

by Elly Teman

Birthing a Mother is the first ethnography to probe the intimate experience of gestational surrogate motherhood. In this beautifully written and insightful book, Elly Teman shows how surrogates and intended mothers carefully negotiate their cooperative endeavor. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork among Jewish Israeli women, interspersed with cross-cultural perspectives of surrogacy in the global context, Teman traces the processes by which surrogates relinquish any maternal claim to the baby even as intended mothers accomplish a complicated transition to motherhood. Teman’s groundbreaking analysis reveals that as surrogates psychologically and emotionally disengage from the fetus they carry, they develop a profound and lasting bond with the intended mother.

Genres: Academic, Anthropology

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Christina]

Excellent scholarly ethnography of surrogacy in Israel. Being a surrogate myself, I read this with some bias and didn't agree with every conclusion drawn by Ms. Teman. Still, Birthing a Mother is far and away the best, most intelligent, most enlightening thing I've read about surrogacy.
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[Julie Cohen]

Extremely interesting account of state-regulated surrogacy in Israel. For me, the most intriguing parts were the metaphors used by gestational and intended mothers to explain their feelings and situations. This book helped me a great deal with my understanding when I was writing my novel about surrogacy, DEAR THING.

[Yola]

The author is empathetic towards her interviewees, be it the surrogates or the intended mothers. At the end she calls for better regulations and more value should be given to the surrogates’ experience and how they feel.

However we can’t shy away from the fact Teman acknowledges the inherent exploration in the form of gender inequality. The gender performance implicitly forced upon these women due to societal expectations. The fact these women have developed a good coping mechanism to deal with their situation does not mean we should sanction for these kind of behaviours.

It’s a great research and amazing fieldwork. But it also scarred me reading these first hand experiences.

[ginny clifford]

Read for senior thesis, so excellent and interesting

[Sunflower]

Really good book, had to read it for an anthropology course but really liked it. Well written and not hard to read like some other jargony writing we were given in that class.