Surrogacy 'orphan' trapped in limbo after prospective parents divorce

The custody of the child, named in reports as Manji, born to an Indian surrogate mother and intended for a Japanese couple, hangs in limbo after the pair divorced.

Ikufumi Yamada, 45, and his then-wife Yuki Yamada, 41, had signed a surrogacy agreement with Priti Patel in November.

Abandoned: A nurse attends to baby Manji as she lies in hospital in Jaipur yesterday

Commercial surrogacy has been legal in India since 2002 and the child born of such an agreement is then legally adopted by its biological parents.

But Indian law does not allow single men to adopt.

As he divorced shortly before the baby was born, that means Ikufumi Yamada may not be able to adopt Manji.

In a cruel twist, mother Yuki Yamada has decided she no longer wants the child. The surrogate mother Priti Patel has also left the child.

Manji is currently in a hospital recovering from an illness in Jaipur city in western Rajasthan state, said Dr Sanjay Arya.

She is now being looked after by Ikufumi Yamada's mother.

Dr Arya said:  "The grandmother becomes very emotional when she is told that the child cannot be taken out of India. The lawmakers will have to find some solution for this."

Without adoption papers the baby girl cannot be issued a passport or leave the country, Arya said.

Experts say commercial surrogacy - or what has been called "wombs for rent" - is growing in India.

While no reliable numbers track such pregnancies nationwide, doctors work with surrogates in virtually every major city. The women are impregnated in-vitro with the egg and sperm of couples from all over the world who are unable to conceive on their own.

Surrogate mothers, often poor women with little education, earn between £2,250 and £2,500000, plus all medical costs, for the service.

Most couples end up paying the surrogacy clinic about £5,000 for the entire procedure, including fertilization, the fee to the mother and medical expenses.