Since 1989, American families have adopted more than 230,000 children from other countries. Many of these children have lived in crowded conditions, sometimes with poor standards of hygiene, inadequate nutrition, and limited numbers of caregivers. Some suffer from endemic infectious diseases. Upon arrival, practitioners often fail to recognize the unique concerns of this group. This text provides an overview of the specialized medical and developmental issues that affect internationally adopted children, offering guidelines to the physicians caring for these children and their families before, during, and after adoption. The reader will learn how to advise families prior to an international adoption, how to perform an effective initial screening assessment of the newly arrived child, and how to recognize and manage developmental and other more long-term problems as they emerge.
