Continued from here...

Perspective adoptive parents should educate themselves on different health issues and conditions common in adopted children and get a good idea of what they feel they can or cannot handle, what risks they can and cannot take and then be open and honest with their social workers and adoption agency. On one hand no parent should ever feel pressure to adopt a child that they do not feel 100% comfortable in accepting and yet on the other hand, no child can be given a health guarantee.

It is understandable that parents worry about children (especially those being adopted internationally) coming home with a serious illness that they did not previously know about. I have been asked countless times if I know about any children being adopted from Africa who turned out to be HIV+, and the adoptive parents didn't know until the child came home. The answer is that, no, I do not. (Although I do know of a child that came home from Eastern Europe and was HIV+, which the parents did not know beforehand. For the record, that child is doing wonderfully, and although it was tough for the adoptive family at first, they feel extremely blessed with their child and would not trade him for any other child in the world).

When you look at the thousands and thousands of children who are adopted every year and do not have any serious unknown illnesses or conditions, the odds are good that your child won't either. There are countless healthy children of all ages waiting to be adopted. Agencies run health screenings, and the U.S. Embassies run their own health screenings on the children before a visa can be issued. Using an adoption agency that you trust, who works in a country and with an orphanage that are trustworthy is highly important. Talk to other parents who have adopted children through the same program and ask about their experiences, their children's health, etc.

And while occasionally a child does come home and turn out to have TB, Hepatitis B or some other condition that was undiagnosed (sometimes contracted in the orphanage), these sort of things are not very common (but again, it is wise to expect the unexpected).

On the flip side, it is VERY common for children to come home with a wide variety of minor health issues. Scabies, lice, ringworm, intestinal parasites, colds, ear infections, giardia and other ailments are common among children living in orphanages and in impoverished areas. (Actually two of our children adopted domestically had some of these issues as well). Luckily these things are often easy to treat and clear up quickly.

It is logical for parents to worry about the health of their children to be. It is good to be prepared and to be educated about what may or may not come to pass. And yet it is also important to remember that most adoptive parents that you talk to will tell you that their children are happy and healthy and doing great, even the ones that did not come home that way.

Below are resources for finding more info on the health of adopted children and finding an international adoption doctor to speak with. Also, don't forget what a wonderful resource other adoptive parents can be!

There are also “emotional health” issues in adoption, such as bonding and attachment, and I will address those in another post (coming soon).

In our adoptions, we have requested a young, healthy infant (and gotten one), we have adopted a newborn that we expected to be perfectly healthy and turned out to have a whole laundry bag of health problems, we have adopted children that were expected to be healthy and were, and we have knowingly adopted children with special needs. They are all perfect. We wouldn’t change a thing.


Here are some adoption health resources.
Here is a post that I wrote about an article on the health of internationally adopted children.


Center for Adoption Medicine has articles, links and all sorts of information, including info on a long list of different special needs common in adopted children. They also do preadoption consultations.

Orphan Doctor- Dr. Jane Aronson’s website, chock full of medical resources and adoption resources for adoptive parents. They also provide referral reviews and consultations.

Here is a great article on Medical Problems of Adopted Children from Adoption.com

Here is a post I wrote earlier on Special Needs Adoption.

Here is post I wrote on Special Needs children and adoption.