In three years, the number of facilities rose 20 per cent. Although infertility has not increased in the country, a high number of people (64 per cent) prefer artificial insemination or surrogate mothers. Surrogacy is thus spreading among Indian couples.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) - The number of infertility clinics jumped 20 per cent between 2010 and 2012, this according to data gathered by the Indian Society for Assisted Reproduction (ISAR) for the National Assisted Reproductive Technology Registry of India, the only national voluntary registry.

According to experts, the rise in such clinics is not correlated with any increase in infertility in India. Nevertheless, more and more people - 64 per cent - prefer to use assisted reproduction and frozen embryos. The choice then is between implant at the "most appropriate" moment and surrogacy.

In fact, the use of frozen embryos has increased by 66 per cent according to the three-year study.

Karnataka is the state where most treatments take place, followed by Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra has the most clinics.

The number of couples who choose surrogacy jumped by 44 per cent between 2010 and 2012.

"This is because many celebrities begun to admit that they resorted to surrogacy," said Dr Duru Shah, former ISAR president. "Many Indian couples thus became interested in the practice, which until recently involved only foreigners."

In India, surrogacy became legal in 2002, but is still not regulated and this can result in extreme cases in which the unborn child is treated as an object.

Generally, women used as a "surrogate mother" come from very poor backgrounds, a condition that allows such clinics to manipulate them more easily.

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