American Academy of Pediatrics: Assume All Adopted Children Have Trauma

Trauma in adopted children

 Assume There is Adoption Trauma in Adoptees

 

From the American Academy of Pediatrics new guide:

 

“Assume that all children who have been adopted or fostered have experienced trauma.”

 

Yes, you heard that right. It goes on in a very good way that can help people understand that we are not saying ALL adoptees will have strong affects of the trauma, but that some might. The same thought is verified by listen to many adoptees say that they identify with the Primal Wound, while many others will not

 

“Pediatricians care for children before, during, and after  traumatic experiences and must be skilled in identifying  the many presentations of toxic stress. Assume that  all children who have been adopted or fostered have  experienced trauma. Just as not every child exposed to  tuberculosis develops hemoptysis, fevers, and weight  loss, not every child exposed to stress will develop  trauma symptoms.

However, practice standards demand  that all children exposed to either tuberculosis or trauma  should be screened and tested. With tuberculosis, some  exposed will show no clinical disease, some will have  latent disease, and some will be ill. The same 3 outcomes  apply to trauma exposure. The pediatrician must assume  that such exposure could have profoundly impacted the  child, and must use history taking, surveillance questions,  and screening tools to accurately assess trauma’s impact.”

 

Get the full PDF here: Helping Foster and Adoptive Families Cope With Trauma by the American Academy of Pediatrics

 

While the guide does not directly say that the separation of a mother and child is the cause of the trauma, I find it telling that they say : Assume and ALL.

About the Author

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Musings of the Lame was started in 2005 primarily as a simple blog recording the feelings of a birthmother as she struggled to understand how the act of relinquishing her first newborn so to adoption in 1987 continued to be a major force in her life. Built from the knowledge gained in the adoption community, it records the search for her son and the adoption reunion as it happened. Since then, it has grown as an adoption forum encompassing the complexity of the adoption industry, the fight to free her sons adoption records and the need for Adoptee Rights, and a growing community of other birthmothers, adoptive parents and adopted persons who are able to see that so much what we want to believe about adoption is wrong.

1 Comment on "American Academy of Pediatrics: Assume All Adopted Children Have Trauma"

  1. Ron Morgan | June 6, 2013 at 11:09 am |

    “While the guide does not directly say that the separation of a mother and child is the cause of the trauma, I find it telling that they say : Assume and ALL.” The report goes to great lengths to describe possible traumatic events in the early lives of foster and adopted children; abuse, neglect, interuterine exposure to drugs and alcohol, as well as diagnostic tools. It seems to me that if the AAP wanted to include mother/child separation as a traumatic event, they would have done so. If anything the report goes out of its way to avoid mentioning abandonment (as experienced by an infant) and histories of failed attachment as causative traumatic events.

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