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Doctors Need to Share Child’s Full Medical Background With Adoptive Parents
UK adoption law encourages frank disclosure of the adoptive child’s family health history to prospective adopters, but birth parents do not always consent to this.
Doctors are usually privy to most of this information, but professional guidelines and legislation prohibit disclosure without the express consent of the birth parents unless it is “in the public interest,” often leaving doctors in a quandary.
The argument in favour of disclosure may be more clear-cut where there is a high risk of a treatable heritable condition, but greater clarity is needed for subtler risks such as fetal alcohol problems, say the authors, from the University of Southampton and the British Association for Adoption and Fostering.
They point out that many of the UK’s 4000 children adopted every year will have experienced physical or emotional abuse or will have complex developmental and educational needs.
Their birth parents are likely to have experienced similar abuse and may also have had bouts of mental ill health and other problems, such as substance misuse, all of which “powerfully influence a child’s future health,” say the authors.
“If medical information is not shared at this point, the adopted child may experience a lifetime of ignorance about their family health history and possible future health risks,” not only for them, but also for their children, they write.
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