Lets try this again. My question was deleted about what I misunderstood. so lets take a different route.
If you are surrendering a child it is ASSUMED that this would take place during the child bearing years.
Now if you are within the child bearing years what kinds of medical history can you pass along with a child?
Does that information give a good representation of ALL of a child's medical history?
Is 29 old enough for a medical history to be complete?
Will ALL of your medical malfunctions manifest themselves by the time you're 50?
Can a complete medical history be obtained in a closed adoption?
CDraBella2009-07-09T14:25:34Z
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Medical histories change through the years. Having no contact with anyone on either side restricts anyway to update what is learned as the years go on. That is common sense.
At sixteen, when I surrendered my oldest son, the only medical history I was aware of and informed his aparents about was asthma (which he did inherit from his father.) Ironically, the health information for our family began to change drastically in our late twenties and on into our thirties.
My husband's father died from a heart attack at the age of 50 and it was then that they linked the heart problems inherited through the family because my husband's grandfather also died from a heart attack at age 52.
At 28 I was diagnosed with hypothyroid which is also inherited in many cases and within the last few years my husband's mother and older brother were both diagnosed with diabetes. My husband himself, just a month ago, went into the ER and spent two days in Intensive Care because he too had not only formed diabetes (type one) but his body was in the process of shutting down because of the dangerous affects of high blood sugar levels.
Because my son's aparents closed his adoption when he was only five, he would have never known any of these things if we had not reunited. He would have known only about asthma and nothing further and very well could have grown older and faced the risk of losing his life to either a heart attack or untreated diabetes.
You are 100% right. You can not have accurate health records in a closed adoption. It simply is not possible.
ETA: My husband pointed out another side to the medical history - my mom., myself and all my children (including my oldest son) walk on our toes. We thought it was normal to have stress on our calves walking up the stairs and that every one went through it. It wasn't until almost fifteen years after surrendering my son that we learned (because my youngest son had to have surgery on both his ankles at the same time) that it is actually a genetic condition where the achiles tendon is too tight and causes complication in walking and stress on walking on your heels. I always thought it was just a quirk for myself and my family but for my oldest son, whose aparents didn't know about this condition or see it as even a "quirk" he grew up being yelled at constantly to walk on his heels and told by his adad that only "fags" walked like he did.
It wasn't medical info that could have saved his life. But it was definitely something that might have made his aparents understand a bit more why he was walking on his toes without throwing insults at him for doing so.
No one can ever have a complete medical history unless they know their ancestors history. Nevermore, if you dont stay in touch with your current extended family your not ever going to have a complete medical history.
"Now if you are within the child bearing years what kinds of medical history can you pass along with a child?"
An incomplete history. Secondly, we still live in a world where disorders like depression, anxiety are seen as weaknesses and as such are rarely disclosed. Third, it's not until someone gets cancer or a some serious disease before people start querying about their medical history. Thats when you find out that uncle Johnie died .. so did great uncle ray.. and so did aunti fay... but in a closed adoption that information is rarely updated on those records.
"Is 29 old enough for a medical history to be complete?
Will ALL of your medical malfunctions manifest themselves by the time you're 50?"
Nope and Nope. You could be 75 before anything serious happens. Even then a 75 year old may not be aware of any extended family being seriously ill.
"Can a complete medical history be obtained in a closed adoption?"
No. It can't even be achieved with non-adoptees. You can only know what is known at any point in time. But that is only dependent on that known being fully disclosed. Of course there are going to be some nice people out there who do the right thing and update the child records continuously, but in reality it rarely happens.
Of course it is understood that you will live longer and continue to develop whatever medical issues come your way. The medical history to pass onto an agency working with you to surrender the child for adoption involves your family's history as you know it. They are particularly interested in diseases that are genetically linked. By the time this child is grown, there will be much more known about genetics and medicine, and perhaps the child can submit a DNA sample and have all the info required. You are a brave and noble person to do this.
Well, a medical history can be considered "complete", meaning that up to this point in time, everything is accurate. So, a 29 year old can list all known medical allergies, surgeries, medical conditions, family history of medical conditions (etc) and it can be complete and accurate *at that point in time*. But then, that same 29 year old can develop breast cancer in another 20 years, etc. Or her father could have developed diabetes. Medical history changes every time something happens.
As far as a closed adoption goes, I thought that meant that the adoptive parents had NO information at all on the biological family, and vice-versa. I think by virtue of having medical information makes it a semi-open adoption? I could be wrong.
I can only answer in terms of my adoption. My parents were given a medical history at the time of adoption. It did not have info about my biological father as he was not told about the adoption. And yes, the info would be ridiculously out of date very quickly seeing as my biological mom was 16 at the time.
However, the agency they went through does allow you to request updated medical histories whenever you want. So, assuming that they were still able to find my biological mother and she would agree to update the info, it is feasible that the medical history could have been updated periodically. However it still would have been missing half of the information since they didn't list my bio-dad anywhere on the adoption records.
ETA: And I agree with Devon. It would be great if agencies and such would have a service where bio-parents could notify them of important medical changes and the agency would notify the adoptee rather than just waiting for someone to ask for it.