page_title: Adoption
section_title: How adoptions originate
hierarchical_section_title: Adoption / Contemporary adoption / How adoptions originate
caption_attribution_description: English: Mother embraces her child born with microcephaly. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. João was born with microcephaly – he has a smaller head and under-developed brain. This once-rare condition is becoming more common in Brazil because of Zika outbreaks. Many families struggle to cope with the needs of children with microcephaly, and more and more are abandoned – including João. He was later adopted by Marilene and given a loving home. The wider story. In October 2015, Brazil reported a link between Zika infections among pregnant women and cases of microcephaly in their newborn babies. The condition can cause long-term physical impairments, but researchers have recently found that certain treatments within the first six months of infancy, such as physiotherapy, can reduce these effects.
context_page_description: Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parent or parents.
  In many jurisdictions, the adopted person's full original birth certificate is cancelled and replaced with a fabricated post-adoption birth certificate that states that the child was born to the adoptive parents. This deception, when carried out, may continue with the adopted person for life and can be the cause for many well-documented traumas experienced by the adopted person, including loss of identity, family history, culture, biological family, family medical history and records, and increased risk of suicide, homelessness, incarceration, PTSD, depression, and anxiety.
  Unlike guardianship or other systems designed for the care of the young, adoption is intended to effect a permanent change in status and as such requires societal recognition, either through legal or religious sanction. Historically, some societies have enacted specific laws governing adoption, while others used less formal means.
context_section_description: Adoptions can occur either between related family members or between unrelated individuals. Historically, most adoptions occurred within a family. The most recent data from the U.S. indicates about half of adoptions are currently between related individuals. A common example of this is a "step-parent adoption", where the new partner of a parent legally adopts a child from the parent's previous relationship. Intra-family adoption can also occur through surrender, as a result of parental death, or when the child cannot otherwise be cared for and a family member agrees to take over.
  Infertility is the main reason parents seek to adopt children they are not related to. One study shows this accounted for 80% of unrelated infant adoptions and half of adoptions through foster care. Estimates suggest that 11–24% of Americans who cannot conceive or carry to term attempt to build a family through adoption, and that the overall rate of ever-married American women who adopt is about 1.4%. Other reasons people adopt are numerous although not well documented. These may include wanting to cement a new family following divorce or death of one parent, compassion motivated by religious or philosophical conviction, to avoid contributing to overpopulation out of the belief that it is more responsible to care for otherwise parent-less children than to reproduce, to ensure that inheritable diseases (e.g., Tay–Sachs disease) are not passed on, and health concerns relating to pregnancy and childbirth. Although there are a range of reasons, the most recent study of experiences of women who adopt suggests they are most likely to be 40–44 years of age, to be currently married, to have impaired fertility, and to be childless.
  Unrelated adoptions may occur through the following mechanisms:
  Private domestic adoptions: under this arrangement, charities and for-profit organizations act as intermediaries, bringing together prospective adoptive parents with families who want to place a child, all parties being residents of the same country. Alternatively, prospective adoptive parents sometimes avoid intermediaries and connect with women directly, often with a written contract; this is not permitted in some jurisdictions. Private domestic adoption accounts for a significant portion of all adoptions; in the United States, for example, nearly 45% of adoptions are estimated to have been arranged privately.
  Foster care adoption: this is a type of domestic adoption where a child is initially placed in public care. Many times the foster parents take on the adoption when the children become legally free. Its importance as an avenue for adoption varies by country. Of the 127,500 adoptions in the U.S. in 2000, about 51,000 or 40% were through the foster care system.
  International adoption: this involves the placing of a child for adoption outside that child's country of birth. This can occur through public or private agencies. In some countries, such as Sweden, these adoptions account for the majority of cases (see above table). The U.S. example, however, indicates there is wide variation by country since adoptions from abroad account for less than 15% of its cases. More than 60,000 Russian children have been adopted in the United States since 1992, and a similar number of Chinese children were adopted from 1995 to 2005. The laws of different countries vary in their willingness to allow international adoptions. Recognizing the difficulties and challenges associated with international adoption, and in an effort to protect those involved from the corruption and exploitation which sometimes accompanies it, the Hague Conference on Private International Law developed the Hague Adoption Convention, which came into force on 1 May 1995 and has been ratified by 85 countries as of November 2011.
  Embryo adoption: based on the donation of embryos remaining after one couple's in vitro fertilization treatments have been completed; embryos are given to another individual or couple, followed by the placement of those embryos into the recipient woman's uterus, to facilitate pregna
caption: The 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic led to large numbers of children being born with microcephaly, with adoption a frequent outcome.
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