NASHVILLE (AP) - A juvenile judge was wrong to terminate the parental rights of a surrogate mother before her baby was born, the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled.

The Tennessee woman agreed in 2010 to be artificially inseminated by an Italian man after that man and his girlfriend learned they could not have children, according to court documents. The surrogacy contract was signed by the Italian couple, the Tennessee woman and her husband.

The Italian couple agreed to pay the Tennessee woman for pain and suffering as well as certain expenses such as legal fees, medical bills, lost wages and transportation. The couple eventually paid the surrogate mother approximately $73,000.

In November 2011, two months before the baby was born, the two couples jointly filed a petition to ratify the surrogacy agreement. The next month, a juvenile court judge in Nashville gave custody of the unborn baby to the Italian father and terminated the parent al rights of surrogate mother and her husband.

However, less than a week after the surrogate mother gave birth, she filed a motion to regain custody of the baby girl. The juvenile court rejected her request and the Court of Appeals upheld that decision.

On Thursday, the Tennessee Supreme Court vacated a portion of the original custody order, ruling that Tennessee statutes "unequivocally prohibit the voluntary relinquishment of a biological birth mother's parental rights prior to the birth."

After the birth, a biological mother can chose to give up a child or allow it to be adopted, the court said. But when termination of parental rights is involuntary, as in this case, a judge must make a finding that either the parent is unfit or that substantial harm to the child will result if parental rights are not terminated.

"Furthermore, unless and until termination of the parental rights of the Surrogate occurs, she will retain both the rights and the responsi bilities associated with legal parenthood," the court ruled.

While custody remains with the Italian father, the court remanded the case to the juvenile court to determine issues of visitation and child support for the surrogate mother.

As part of its ruling, the court also expressed concern that Tennessee's surrogacy statute "lacks a clear process for persons to create, carry out, and enforce traditional surrogacy agreements," leaving the courts "ill-equipped to deal with the complex questions that inevitably arise in this area of the law."

"We encourage our General Assembly to follow the lead of other state legislatures that have enacted statutes to address the fundamental questions related to surrogacy," the court wrote.