Fertility experts have called for a register of potential surrogate mothers in order to help people trying to have a baby, writes the Volkskrant.

The FIOM pregnancy and genetics organisation and a fertility expert told the paper they believed a surrogate bank would be helpful.

Currently, if people want to find a surrogate to carry a fertilised egg to term, they must find her themselves.

Roel Schats, a gynaecologist at the VUmc teaching hospital in Amsterdam, told the paper: ‘Couples who cannot find a surrogate mother themselves cannot be referred or helped. And if women are prepared to be surrogates themselves, they cannot register this anywhere. It would be good if this changes.’

The FIOM added that if it were easier to find surrogate mothers in the Netherlands, people would be less likely to look abroad, where women were at risk of being ‘exploited’. Policy officer Hans van Hooff reportedly said: ‘The foreign route is not in the interests of children, who later sometimes don’t know who has brought them into the world.’