Q:
My husband and I are hoping to adopt
a sibling group (2-3). Understanding that each child is
different, what are the chances that if the older child
has FAS/FAE, or RAD, or ADDH issues that they all will to
the same degree? Will the younger one have more issues than
the older one? Are there any patterns?
A:There is no generic answer to your question for
many reasons. I will list just a few of them to actually show that
each child is different, as you have pointed out yourself.
The
internationally adopted siblings almost always come from broken
families and different fathers, thus they have different heredity;
and the biological makeup and deceases of one child are not necessarily
present in the other child, even if the condition would normally
be passed from parents to children.
If the parents are
the same, some conditions are more likely to be present in both
siblings than others. For example, with the mental retardation in
the parent(s) and in one of the children the chances are significantly
higher that the other sibling may be retarded too.
There
are diseases, such as FAS/FAE syndrome that are not hereditary,
so, even if the mother is an alcoholic, the FAS/FAE condition is
not necessarily present in her child, though the chances are pretty
high.
One interesting thing in relation to conditions, present
in a child because of the mother's alcohol/narcotics abuse, is a
pattern of parental behavior. For example, if the mother did not
abuse alcohol during her pregnancy with the first child, this child
may be fine in this respect, but the next one is already not so
lucky, because she had indulged into the habit by that time. Can
it be the other way around (she dropped the habit after the first
child's birth)? It's unlikely with the internationally adopted children:
they would not be up for adoption if it was the case.
