A greater number of children in foster care, kinship care, and adoption systems, particularly international adoptions, are known to have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs).
It is important to acknowledge the feelings associated with learning of the diagnosis. However, it is also important to avoid blaming the biological parent to working with your child's medical home provider to determine their best course of treatment.
Your child may have arrived through foster care or adoptive processes with a diagnosis of an FASD. However, for some children―especially children from international adoptions―it may be difficult to obtain any historical information and evaluation results to inform the evaluation process, such as verifying amount and presence of prenatal alcohol exposure. You will need to work with your child's medical home provider as well as their adoption or foster care service provider to determine as much as possible about prenatal and postnatal experiences.
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