social mother
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mother
[moth´er]a female parent. With techniques of assisted fertility, three types of mother can be defined: (1) genetic, (2) gestational, and (3) social. A woman may be one, two, or all three types of mother to a child.
genetic mother a woman whose contribution to the child was the ovum, and hence genes.
gestational mother a woman whose uterus was used for the nurturing and development of an embryo into a baby.
social mother a woman who rears the baby after birth.
Miller-Keane Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition. © 2003 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.
social mother
The woman who raises a newborn child, regardless of whether she is genetically related to it.
See also: mother
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