Surrogacy birth care practices in the hospital setting: a scoping review protocol

Objective: This scoping review aims to systematically map existing literature on surrogacy birth care, focusing specifically on hospital-based practices during birth and the immediate postnatal period. Introduction: Surrogacy is becoming an increasingly common pathway to parenthood. However, maternity and childbirth systems remain underprepared to manage the unique challenges of surrogacy birth care. Although certain countries have guidelines, care for surrogates, intended parents, and newborns remains inconsistent. These variations highlight the urgent need for standardized, evidence-based guidelines. Eligibility criteria: Articles published in English will be included if they report on hospital-based care practices or interventions related to surrogacy births during birth and/or the immediate postnatal period. Eligible studies may use qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods designs and involve surrogates, intended parents, or health care professionals (eg, nurses, midwives, obstetricians) within hospital settings. Studies conducted outside hospital environments or focused solely on pre-conception or antenatal stages, as well as non-empirical sources such as opinion pieces or commentaries, will be excluded. Methods: This review will follow the JBI methodology for scoping reviews and will be reported in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). A comprehensive search will be conducted to capture relevant studies across multiple databases, including MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL with Full Text (EBSCOhost), Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO (Ovid), and gray literature. A customized data extraction tool will be used to collect key study characteristics. The results will be analyzed descriptively, with relevant data presented in tables or figures, where applicable. Review registration: OSF https://osf.io/pw28v/overview