This study explored adoptive parents’ responses to unexpected characteristics of their children with a lens of family stress theory. Ninety individuals in 45 couples, 30 of whom adopted via child welfare and 15 of whom adopted via private domestic adoption, were interviewed 3 months post-adoptive placement regarding unfulfilled expectations about their child’s age, gender, race and special need...

The Pennsylvania Adoption Exchange (PAE) helps case workers who represent children in state custody by recommending prospective families for adoption. We describe PAE’s operational challenges using case worker surveys and analyze child outcomes through a regression analysis of data collected over multiple years. A match recommendation spreadsheet tool implemented by PAE incorporates insights fr...

In 1997, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), passed by the federal government, included a requirement that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services develop outcome measures for child welfare agencies. There had been ongoing concerns about the state of the foster care system, which seemed to continue to grow each decade with disproportionate levels of racial and ethnic minorities ...

Each year in the United States, 3.5 million women unintentionally become pregnant.3 Moreover, approximately 1.5 million abortions are performed annually,4 making the United States' abortion rate one of the highest among Western countries.' Meanwhile, the number of women and children living below the poverty level continues to increase. 6 These facts indicate that women urgently need additional ...

The unmarried pregnant woman considering adoption needs more than medical care from her family physician. She needs an advocate who can help her reach the right decision about her untimely pregnancy, advice about the options for adoptive placement of her child, and respect as the child's mother during her hospital stay. After the birth and adoptive placement of the child, the physician can help...

Using a longitudinal, prospective adoption design, the authors of this study examined the effects of the environment (adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and responsiveness) and genetic liability of maternal depression (inferred by birth mothers' major depressive disorder [MDD]) on the development of fussiness in adopted children between 9 and 18 months old. The sample included 281 families l...

We draw on variations in the reach of capital punishment statutes between 1977 and 2004 to identify the deterrent effects associated with capital eligibility. Focusing on the most prevalent eligibility expansion, we estimate that the adoption of a child murder factor is associated with an approximately 20% reduction in the child murder rate. Eligibility expansions may enhance deterrence by (i) ...

The state of West Bengal has witnessed fertility transition during the last decade, though the level of infant and child mortality remained at a high level, particularly among the socio-economically disadvantaged communities. At the same time, the adoption of female sterilization has increased substantially. Adoption of sterilization in low fertility situation combined with relatively higher le...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate and compare emotional and behavioral problems in Turkish adoptees and non-adopted peers raised by their biological parents. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study included 61 adopted children (34 female and 27 male) aged 6-18 years and 62 age- and gender-matched non-adopted children (35 female and 27 male). Parents rated their children's problem behaviors us...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the rate of depressive symptomatology and possible underlying factors in adoptive mothers during the transition to motherhood. DESIGN Cohort survey. SETTING General Community. PARTICIPANTS Thirty-nine adoptive mothers of reproductive age registered with international adoption agencies. INTERVENTIONS All women completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS...