Adjustment of Adopted Children and Prognosis from Maternal and Natal Risk Factors

The medical examination of the newborn infant for adoption should reduce the risk of the prospective parents adopting a child with a potentially serious disease or abnormality, and ensure that the infant being adopted is healthy (Betheras, 1976). Genetic and clinically obvious conditions apart, an early detection of brain damage was said to be of highest importance in such an examination, because adopting parents “… find it insupportable if a child cannot respond adequately to their love and affection” (Tizard, 1969, p. 44). However, because even gross brain damage may be undetectable in the early weeks of life, and the prediction of future development of the neonate is seldom possible from a paediatric examination (Tizard, 1969; Karelitz, 1956), there appear to be only very limited prospects to reduce “… the magnitude of the risk that adoptive parents must taken when they adopt newborn infants” (Karelitz, 1956, p. 94).