THE Thai surrogate mother left with abandoned baby Gammy said she will raise him, after his Australian parents discovered he had Down’s syndrome.

“I’ll take care of Gammy on my own. I’ll not give my baby to anybody,” Pattharamon Janbua said from a hospital where Gammy is being treated for a lung infection, Fairfax Media reports.

Well-wishers have raised more than $122,000 to help the six-month old baby who Ms Pattharamon fears will die unless he undergoes surgery for a congenital heart condition, Fairfax Media reports.

Ms Pattharamon who has two other children aged three and six - told the ABC she felt sorry for baby Gammy.

“This was the adults’ fault. And who is he to endure something like this even though it’s not his fault?,” she said.

“Why does he have to be abandoned and the other baby has it easy?

“I chose to have him, not to hurt him.”

“I love him, he was in my tummy for nine months, it’s like my child,” she told the ABC.

“Never think that you’re not my child, that I don’t care for you.”

OPINION: ‘A disgustingly selfish act’

The unnamed couple used a surrogate after they were unable to conceive naturally. Ms Pattharamon became pregnant with twins and when tests at the four-month mark showed the baby boy, named Gammy, had Down syndrome the couple reportedly told her to have an abortion.

Ms Pattharamon, a Buddhist, refused.

When the twins were born in Bangkok the couple took Gammy’s sister — who was born healthy — home but refused to take the boy.

The couple reportedly paid $11,700 for Ms Pattharamon to be a surrogate and the surrogacy agency promised her another $1637 when it was discovered she was carrying twins.

“The money that was offered was a lot for me. In my mind, with that money, one, we can educate my children, two, we can repay our debt,” said Pattaramon, already a mother to two children, in an interview with the broadcaster in Chonburi.

She is now desperately trying to raise money to care for Gammy, who has a congenital heart condition and is critically ill.

“I don’t know what to do. I chose to have him ... I love him, he was in my tummy for nine months,” she said in the interview.

Pattaramon has never met Gammy’s Australian parents, according to Thai newspaper Thairath, which broke the story of Gammy last week, and their identities remain unknown.

“I would like to tell Thai women — don’t get into this business as a surrogate. Don’t just think only for money ... if something goes wrong no one will help us and the baby will be abandoned from society, then we have to take responsibility for that,” she told Fairfax.

The family has set up a Hope for Gammy campaign to help fund the baby’s operations.

The campaign is reportedly being supported by Australian embassy staff in Bangkok. It has raised $122,000 so far.

“6 month old baby Gammy was born in Bangkok with down syndrome and a congenital heart condition. He was abandoned by his family and is being cared for by a young Thai woman who does not have the funds for his desperately needed medical treatment,” the GoFundMe page says.

“ Please make a donation so that he can have these operations and improve his quality of life. All monies raised will be kept in trust and will only be used for the care and wellbeing of Gammy.”

Furious Australians rushed to donate to the campaign, labelling the Australian couple’s actions appalling.

“I have a surrogate daughter and appalled that this could be allowed to happen. Selfish, selfish people — surrogacy should be regulated onshore IN Australia, to stop this sort of thing from occurring,” wrote Stuart Rees.

Shally Backus wrote: “A warm welcome to this beautiful world little fella. Sorry your start was a little rocky — not all Australians are like this :)”

Rebecca Brown was also outraged, writing: “The behaviour of these Australian parents is appalling — to leave one of their children to die because he is not “perfect”? SHAME on them. I pray for every blessing for Gammy and his Thai family. Hopefully Australians can band together and show them a different picture of Australian nature.”

“May this selfish and heartless couple be exposed and shamed for this horrible neglect!” said another.

The Australian Federal government is examining case.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, based on media reports, “it’s an incredibly sad story”.

“I guess it illustrates some of the pitfalls involved in this particular (surrogacy) business,” he told reporters on Saturday.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is concerned by the report, which a spokeswoman said raises the broader issues of surrogacy in Thailand.

“Australian government agencies are examining these issues in consultation with authorities in Thailand.”

Thai health officials have now moved to crack down on the surrogacy business, declaring this week that the only legal surrogacy cases were between a married couple unable to conceive who use a blood relative to bear their child.

Surrogacy contracts with unmarried or same-sex couples, and paid surrogacy were declared illegal.

They also declared that foreign couples taking a child from its mother to another country required permission from Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Without permission they would be deemed to be violating human trafficking laws.