Canada Adoption Risks | The Importance Of The Birth Parents' Social and Medical History

	Adoption Risks:
	If a Birth Mother Contacts You
	Confirming Her Pregnancy
	How Do You Know if a Birth Mother will Change her Mind
	If You Sense a Birth Mother Wavering
	The Birth Parents' Social and Medical Histories
	Just Before the Placement and After
	Ten Common Mistakes Adoptive Parents Make When Adopting

The Birth Parents' Social and Medical History
Next to your phone calls, the social and medical history of the prospective birth mother and father will provide you with the clearest window into their lives and the health of their baby. As part of the adoption process, they'll be asked by their adoption practitioner to fill out forms regarding their backgrounds. The information is their version of a home study and, among other things, will explain their reasons for considering adoption as well as provide insights into their families and their health.

Just remember that all of the information you'll receive will be filtered through the prospective birth parents. Most will make an effort to fill out the forms honestly and thoroughly, especially if they have a good rapport with you. However, there may be some things that they won't share with you for fear of being judged or that they might overlook on the grounds that it's unnecessary or unimportant.

Eventually, you'll get a copy of the histories. Read them carefully and if there's anything that seems incomplete or missing or jumps out at you, don't be afraid to bring it to your licensee's attention. Chances are, s/he may have already noticed it. In which case, s/he'll get his/her adoption practitioner to elaborate on it. In general, leave all the heavy lifting to your professionals and don't say or do anything that may harm your relationship. Red flags at this stage?

The prospective birth parents refuse to meet their adoption practitioner or are consistently late for their appointment
They leave many of the questions on their histories unanswered
They have a serious health problem that they never mentioned before
They refuse to sign the forms

stethescope Next to a prospective birth mother (or father) having a change of heart, your biggest concern should be the child's health. You'll be able to extrapolate a lot of information from the medical and social histories, but the rest you'll just have to take on faith. If, for example, you're concerned about a prospective parent's health, you could arrange to get a release and have your doctor speak to his/her doctor to find out more details. As always, it's a judgement call that you'll need to discuss with your licensee.

One thing you'll want to do is learn as much as you can about your prospective birth mother's pregnancy. Among other things, since all can be potentially harmful to the child, you'll need to know if she:

Smokes
Drinks
Takes drugs
Takes medication

Smoking is quite common place for women in her situation so there's not a lot you can do. However, drinking and drugs have been linked to all kinds of health problems and as a result shouldn't be ignored.

pill When reviewing a prospective birth mother's medical history, decide what your threshold for risk is. Imagine all the worst case scenarios and decide what you can or can't live with. For instance, you may decide that you're capable of parenting a child with a potential learning disability, but not one with a physical disability and so on.

In going through the histories, keep in mind that there are limits to what you can know about a person. Just because a potential birth parent is perfectly healthy is no guarantee that his/her child will be as well. While there are some diseases and ailments that are clearly hereditary such as schizophrenia, most won't be detectable for years and years to come.

And lastly, in regards to the prospective parents' histories, remember that knowing every single detail about them can have its drawbacks. You may not always like what you find. Be fair and don't judge them too harshly. Think about your own life and your own family, and how you would fare if you came under such intense scrutiny.