When couples have trouble maintaining a pregnancy, they often consider hiring a surrogate. But with complicated laws governing the practice in Canada and other parts of the West, many are turning to India, where surrogacy is legal – and thriving.

It's unclear how many women in India "rent out" their wombs every year to Western couples who are eager to start or grow their families; no official agency keeps track of the numbers. But with clinics popping up around the country, it's clear that demand is growing.

New Delhi residents Rajesh and Kavita are considering allowing Kavita to become a surrogate. With no income and few prospects, they have contacted a clinic that will pay $4,000 for Kavita to incubate a stranger's baby.

"I'm okay with it because we need the money," she says.

Canada doesn't allow commercial surrogacy, but in India, hundreds of hospitals and firms offer tailored packages to foreign clients unable or unwilling to endure childbirth. They pay up to $40,000 -- far cheaper than elsewhere.

Surrogates sign a contract and live in supervised dorms, the "corporatization" of a multimillion dollar industry in reproductive tourism that in India is still largely unregulated.

India is now a global capital for outsourced pregnancies. For example, a couple in Israel had donor eggs from South Africa fertilized in the U.S. where the embryos were frozen. They were then flown to India and implanted in an Indian surrogate, who is 21 years old and three months pregnant with twins.

Surrogates are promised up to $7,000 -- more, if the birth is by caesarean section. The surrogate for the Israeli couple says she wants the money for her own daughter's education.

Hospitals and clinics tout that financial empowerment. But critics say without stronger laws, women who are poor and uneducated are treated as commodities.

"Everyone is making money, and the doctor is making money most," says Dr. Manasi Mishra, head of research at the Centre for Social Research in New Delhi.

There are complications that can arise during the surrogacy process, such as laws that make it hard for parents from some countries to bring their child home.

But demand for Indian surrogates is thriving, and so too is the lucrative business of making babies.

With a report from CTV's South Asia Bureau Chief Janis Mackey Frayer