International Adoption Clinic Seminar

On Wednesday of last week, Steve and I drove down to Boston to the Floating Hospital for Children to attend a pre-adoption seminar by Dr. Laurie Miller. The seminar was three hours and was quite informative. The talk included everything that could possible go wrong either physically, developmentally or both. Here's the rundown:
Approximately 60% of internationally adopted kids come home with parasites.
About 5% are at risk for Hepatitis B.
70-80% of kids have anemia.
80-90% experience growth delays.
Only 8 kids have EVER tested negative for HIV in their home country and tested positive once in the U.S.--none from Ethiopia.

After Dr. Miller went through the immediate after-effects of being in an orphanage/third world country, she talked about the long-term effects. Between 80-90% catch up dvelopmentally and physically very quickly. Others require early intervention in areas of physical, speech or occupational therapy.

It was interesting to me that we never got this kind of talk when we attended "baby-care" seminars for Grace. No one ever told us the percentage of babies who had birth defects or developmental or physical delays. It would be interesting to compare the numbers.

Dr. Miller also discussed the kind of information we would receive with our referral. If known, we will get the child's date of birth, immunization record, physical exam sheet and measurements, test results for HIV, Hepatitis B and syphilis and family members' information.