Adoptive Family Articles
Birth Mother Drug ScreeningIs drug screening mandatory?
No, drug screens are typically performed by hospitals and doctors should the doctor or hospital suspect drug usage or exposure. Families are provided all test results provided to American Adoptions. Families can also run additional drug screens with their pediatrician. It is important to read the next question to understand the drawbacks and limitations with drug screens during a birth mother’s pregnancy.
How do you know that the birth mother did not use drugs or alcohol during her pregnancy?
There is not a 100 percent guarantee. Some adoption professionals provide clients with a false sense of security when they claim to perform drug screens on all birth mothers. Fifteen years ago, we required drug screening on our birth parents. After a year, we stopped this practice because it caused the following challenges and adverse results:
The Faces of Birth ParentsIt’s no wonder that images of birth mothers tend to parallel the stereotypes of these women portrayed in the media: an uneducated 17-year-old drug addict deserted by her family, forced to “give up” her baby to an adoption agency in exchange for rent and money.
The evolution of adoption has been monumental in 20 years and even more dramatic in the past decade. Long, long gone are the days when women facing unplanned pregnancies “gave up” babies to adoption agencies as a “last resort.”
Placing a baby for adoption, rather than ending a life or choosing to parent despite an inability to fulfill a child’s needs, is an extraordinary expression of selflessness, requiring a complex decision-making ability concluding adoption to be a win-win-win choice.
Women who choose adoption not only choose to give the miracle of life to a new human being, but also to give the gift of parenthood to families who want nothing more in the world.
Doesn’t sound much like the characteristics of an uneducated girl with nothing left but despair and addiction?
That’s because birth mothers are far from embodying this one image. Rather, birth mothers encompass virtually every age group, ethnicity, marital status, profession and sexual orientation.
Do Birth Parents Change Their Minds?One of the many fears some couples have when considering adoption is that the birth parents will change their minds and back out of the adoption. This fear is often perpetuated by television movies and dramatized news stories, further heightening this fear that can often lead couples away from the adoption decision.
In domestic adoption, there is always a chance that the birth parents could change their minds. However, adoption law is clear; once the adoption is finalized, the child is recognized as the adoptive family's child by law. Although there have been a few highly publicized adoption cases in which the adoption was overturned after being finalized, the truth is that these cases were fraught with errors and legal missteps, making them invalid. These cases are rare and are exceptions. In the majority of adoptions finalized today, the birth parents have no rights to the child once the adoption is finalized.
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