Adoption Under One Roof

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has released a new recommendation on vaccinations for prospective international adoptive families.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has recently voted to recommend hepatitis A vaccinations for those who may come into contact with children (baby sitters, grandparents, nephews, ...) from countries with a high rate of infection. These include Guatemala, China, Russia and Ethiopia.

You’ve decided to adopt a child with HIV. What kind of physical and emotional care will be necessary to keep your child healthy? HIV infection means that your child’s body may not fight off infections very well or fight back against illness, such as a simple cold. Therefore it is wise and necessary to keep your child as healthy as possible.

One of the best ways to do this is to instill the need for proper and consistent washing of hands. This is often not followed in public schools or daycares. Just ask your school aged children if they wash their hands before they eat. In addition, proper nutrition and a balanced diet will also help keep your child healthy. If your child has feeding or eating problems, it is wise to get advice from a dietician. Poor nutrition can cause serious problems for children with the HIV virus.

It seems like just yesterday that adoption from Vietnam reopened and families were eagerly anticipating the day they could bring home children to love and parent. In 2007, 828 children were adopted from Vietnam and in 2006, 163, after adoptions from Vietnam were closed between 2004-5. But now the adoption agreement between the U.S. and Vietnam has expired, and the program closed indefinitely because of an inability to resolve disagreements over fraud and corruption. When adoptions reopened in 2006, immoral and greedy people eager to make fast money attached themselves to the adoption process in Vietnam, apparently abducting children who were not available for adoption. Now approximately 1700 American families are left in limbo, even though Vietnamese officials claim they will complete the adoptions of families who are already matched with a child.

Of course, the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater, because there is no shortage of children in Vietnam needing homes. But this is the way it always happens in the intercountry adoption world - reforms cannot seem to be made without stopping the process, at the price of making children suffer. Adoption from Vietnam did not create orphans; there have always been orphans in Vietnam who need forever families. But officials in third world countries have a hard time curbing corruption, and with no organizations like UNICEF willing to help facilitate transparent adoptions, ultimately the door to adoption closes.