[Khruza]

My husband and I are just starting our adoption journey. Our home study is in two weeks. We are interested in adopting from Russia; however, I heard some really disturbing news today. A friend told me that her friend has adopted two children from Russia. Both of them have FAS. That friend also has a network of Russian Adoption Parents and they all received children with varying degrees of FAS. My friend said that the Russian authorities will lie about the history of the mother's alcohol abuse and that even your agency here in the US will lie about the really high odds that your child will have been exposed to alcohol during pregnancy. IS THIS TRUE? Do all children adopted from Russia have some degree of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?

[mom2bemore]

hi, I have a friend from Russia and I have heard her talk about how frequent alcohol consumption is there. I also am a big health/science news buff and thought I remembered reading something. I did a quick google, I don't have any knowledge of Russian adoption but here is a blurb I found below on a study done.

RESULTS: Nearly all nonpregnant Russian women (95.9%) reported consuming alcohol in the last 12 months. Among nonpregnant women drinkers, 7.6% reported drinking heavily (29.58 mL or more ethanol/d), and 18.4% reported drinking >or=5 on at least 1 occasion. Contrary to expectations of Russian obstetricians, pregnant Russian women readily answered detailed questions about their drinking behavior during pregnancy. Nearly all pregnant women drank in the year before they became pregnant; of these, 60.0% reported drinking when they knew they were pregnant, and 34.9% drank in the past 30 days. Among pregnant women who drank in the past 30 days, 7.4% reporting having >or=5 drinks on at least 1 occasion. Nevertheless, more than 90% of pregnant and nonpregnant Russian women believed that alcohol has a detrimental effect on pregnancy outcomes.


Seems like just human nature that if you were dealing with an adoption situation you wouild either a be less likely to realize in the beginning that you were pregnant or B be more likely to be depressed and or have as high a stake in not drinking plus you would be culturally less inclined to think it was a 'big deal'.

And by the way before someone thinks of flaming me I am not saying that the mothers putting their children up for adoption dont care, not at all, I believe adoption is often one of the most selfess acts you can do, I am only saying that it IS a highly stressful thing to go through and if that is already one of your cultural norms or coping mechanisms then.....it just kind of seems there would be a higher likelihood then someone who was planning a pregnancy.

[orenmommy]

Of course not. Children are given up for adoption for various reasons. Some parents cannot afford to take care of their children and have to place them in an orphanage. All mothers in Russia giving up their children are not alcoholics. That is not to say that it is not something to pay attention to. Have the child examined, hire your own physician, realize that a child living in an orphanage is going to need a little extra love and care and will thrive quickly with your attention. The adoption agency that we used is in our small little town and we have a pretty good size population of little Russians because of our agency. They are wonderful children and fit right in with the rest !!! Best wishes to you !

[kfoster]

We adopted our son in 2004. He does not have FAS. And I know of other families who have children who do not have it as well. But it is possible. The best advice I can give you is to find a truly credible agency that gives you as much information as possible. We spoke to other families who had already adopted from Russia that used our agency. We were able see the medical reports from the hospital and orphanage along with having a specialist here to help us. Now, it can be possible to have an independent physician in Russia examine the child. The book, "The Russian Adoption Handbook: How to Adopt from Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan" is a good resource to check out and may help to answer your questions. I referenced page 324. You can find it on books.google.com

Good Luck to you.

[Abdulina]

People are really not going to like me but I don't care. Truth needs to be told. They are finding in more and more studies that as least half of EE adoptees have FAS/FAE. This does NOT surprise me. It is very cultural norm to drink over there. Very normal. And not stopping while pregnant is just as normal over there. It is a matter of culture. Here we have campaigns not to drink while pregnant. That is not present over there. Or, at least hasn't been in the past.

I have 6 children adopted from Russia. ALL 6 have varying degrees of FAS/FAE. Only 1 did I know about beforehand. Only 1. And you can NOT tell by the facial features. Drives me bonkers when folks think that. There is only a short window of time when the facial features develop. The birthmother had to have drank during that window of time in order for the facial features to happen. I have one w/ very dinstinct clear FAS features. The rest do not.

It is a risk you take when adopting from EE. Will all children have this? NO, absolutely not. BUT, you have to be prepared just in case. And it really isn't till school age that you notice things are a little amiss. Differences become more and more noticeable as they get older. And don't think just b/c you have an IA doc look at medicals that they'll give you an accurate chance of how it will be. There are a few folks on the FAS boards that had IA docs look at their records too. Bottom line: You just never know how it's going to be. I am here to tell you though that you CAN indeed live with FAS and your children CAN thrive. I have 7 kids currently, in process to bring 3 more home. Despite statistics, we have done fairly well. None of mine have been in trouble w/ the law, none are pregnant, none smoke, none are sexually active, none have been in trouble w/ school(other than minor stuff), none have run away, etc. This is things we were told would happen to our FAS kids. It has not and my oldest is 18. Has it been easy? NO. Yet, I've been willing to do it time and time again. You can not parent your FAS child the same as your other kids. Doesn't work that way. Took us years to learn a "groove." My kids have friends. My kids go places. They struggle, we help them, and life goes on. FAS is hard but it is manageable. Some of mine have meds, some do not. I even blog about my life w/ our FASers. To let others not the normal and not so normal side of it. I can share the blog address but can't do it on here as it has a chip-in button. So, write me privately if anyone wants the blog address. They have come a long ways. Very proud of them. Went yesterday to see my 8yo's artwork in the Showcase of Stars here. He was chosen to have his artwork displayed. I have 2 fasers that are true artists. I have two that are very athletically inclined. 1 that is too dog gone cute. And another that is torn between whether she wants to be an artist or an athlete. I have no doubt they'll be able to hold down jobs. Will they need help along the way? Yes. But isn't that what parents do anyways?... help their kids? I have a few websites that can help w/ fas.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, birth defects at NOFAS.

Wounded in the Womb - Winnipeg Free Press

FAS Community Resource Center

I do not know everything about FAS nor am I an expert. Just a parent who has dealt w/ this disorder for over 10 years now w/ my kids on various ends of the spectrum. Did you know 80% of FAS kids have normal to above average IQ's? True at our home as well. We have one w/ IQ of 104, 100, 85, 58, 95, & the other says 76 but that is wrong. More like in the 40's. (she's very severe). I only have one child in a self-contained classroom. All do have IEP's. So, just another aspect that many have myths about. Any questions anyone has about FAS, feel free to ask me. May take me a few days to answer so be patient. Good luck to those adopting from EE and know that yes, there is indeed a risk of having a child affected by this disorder in one way or another. But it doesn't mean you can't live a normal life. Just a different life.

Take care,

[FinnishGirl]

Here in Finland many children from Russia have fas/fae or hepatite B/C. But, every year approximately 20-30 children from Russia, only few if compare to USA. We don't have agencies, and only 4 cities from which to adopt in Russia. Social works demand to accept alcohol or drug backround, all children from Russia are some way special need children.

It's fact that in Russia children are usually abonded because of drugs and alcohol. My daughter has fas, and yes, it's hard and difficult. But, we coupe with it and learn something new every day. Her IQ is less than 45.

FinnishGirl

[orenmommy]

The question was "do all Russian adoptees have FAS/FAE?" The answer is NO. I live in a town in the U.S. full of Russian children because the agency is in my town. The children that I know are doing excellent. I also keep in touch with many of the families that adopted from the same orphanage as we did and their children are doing fantastic as well. No problems. Of course there are many Russian orphans that do have FAS and you need to be aware of this and decide with the help of a doctor what is best for you and the child. Best wishes !

[momraine]

I know several Russian children including my daughter who do not have it. However I also know of several that do. I was there a month staying with a family. The father in the family was a Russian Orthodox preist. They did not drink every day, but when they wanted to celebrate something they did drink and they drank a lot. Drinking is very common. The family I stayed with considered themselves very wealthy because they had indoor plumbing. Our driver lived in a small apartment with his children and thier plumbing worked some of the time but the water was drinkable. Vodka is cheaper than juice, milk or bottled water. If they have good water they tend to drink lots of tea, but the families without good water drank a lot of alcohol. Heck, the orpanage workers in our daughter's orphanage were paid in vodka often. I think the 50% sounds about right to me.

[momraine]

I did want to mention something else. I don't know that the Russian authorities lie about the alcohol so much as the don't know and they don't care. At least when I was there they did not beleive that drinking while pregnant was a problem. Some doctors did, but not your average Russian citizen. Most of the time you will have very little if any information on the parents. My daughter was left at the hospital and we were given her parents names (only cause I copied them from the original bc) and nothing else. The orphange director had the records in front of her for my daughter and they included nothing from her parents. No one asked her first mom if she used alcohol, so they authorities had no way of knowing. We know more because we tracked down her first family. Her mother was a nurse and did choose not to drink, but that was rare. In fact she has some fears that dd's birth defects were caused by not drinking. Go figure. Many children are just dropped off at the orphanage with no records at all. They have birth certificates but no medical information on the parents and no prenatal information.

[Jmom72]

Hi,

My daughter was adopted from Russia in 2006. She is now almost 5.5 yrs. and is in school. Luckily she has not shown any signs of FAS/FAE ARND spectrum disorders. I dont know the whole story but the story I got on my dd was that she was given up due to poverty, etc. I was also told that her birthfamily was Roma(politically correct term for gypsy). I was informed that as a cultural group, the Roma drink much less than ethnic Russians, that they only really drink on holidays. I have not seen any indication of ARND in my child at all.
Do I know for a fact that there is no FAS/FAE in Roma kids, no? I only know what I was told. But if you are open to this population of children, there seem to be slightly different reasons why these kids are placed for adoption than the ethnic Russian children (poverty, discrimination, less access to jobs, etc).
That being said, whatever you choose and wherever you choose to adopt from, I wish you luck. I dont have any hard stats of the %age of kids adopted out from Russia on the fetal alcohol spectrum, wish I did, but I dont.
Amy K, NJ

[FinnishGirl]

Also in Russia beer and other light alcohol drinks are not counted to alcohol, they are food items. This is fact in statistics, we have just few weeks ago news that Russia is now changing this. In future also light alcohol products are counted to alcohol use.

So I guess atmosphere is different, beer is not alcohol and so on. Here in Finland alcohol culture is quit much same as in Russia, and yes, when people drink alcohol they usually drink a lot.

I have also heard, that fas is not known in Russia; doctors don't add is to list.

Sorry about spelling mistakes, I just realized that I guess many words, don't have any idea how they should be written

[karla-k]

I personally know 4 beautiful children adopted from Russia. None of them have FAS, that I know of. All are intelligent happy children.

We also have close friends with a son adopted domestically who does have FAS. Classic facial features but that boy is as smart as a whip. On grade level academically and a really neat kid. He is 10 and has some emotional issues and speech delays, but either could be contributed to genetics or to his premature birth.

I think that no matter where you adopt from, FAS is a reality and something you need to be aware of and know that issues can pop up at any point in your child's life.

[JustBarbara]

No, of course, not all children adopted from Russia have FAS/FAE but many do. Certainly not all. Remember that most of these children are spending the first year or two in an orphanage so there are other issues - RAD, for example that might impact quality of life. In some latin american countries they are too poor to buy alcohol but pre-natal care is lacking. There are no guarantees but you need to do a lot of research from whichever country you are applying to. Domestic adoption does not preclude FAS/FAE either.

[MustangLippy]

We had 2 different specialists in the US evaluate video/photos of our DD, and one American trained doctor in Russia look at her for an independent evaluation.

Yes, I was that paranoid. One told us to run for the hills, one said she was probably OK but he wasn't entirely sure and the other said she seemed great!

But I didn't reallly need these folks. I could see something wasn't quite right about our baby. I just wanted someone to look into a crystal ball and tell me what her future held because I wasn't sure I was up to the task.

However, when the time came to make the decision we knew we couldn't leave her there.

And we're lucky. There have been lots of issues but nothing we haven't been able to deal with and I hope it remains that way. She's bright, happy, funny and incredibly cute.

I remember how terrified I was of FAS/FAE, but having parented a child with probable FAE I can say that it hasn't been frightening at all and we have a great family life.

Sometimes you just have to roll the dice and hope for the best. I nearly scared myself into inertia over FAS and I am so glad I didn't let it prevent me from choosing Russia.

Best Wishes

[orenmommy]

That is heart warming Mustang Lippy !!! Everyone here is sharing such great insight !