How often do birth mothers change their mind about adoption?

You may be wondering how often birth mothers change their mind about putting a baby up for adoption. Established adoption attorney, Stephen Ravel, shares statistics and key points of the adoption process that make sudden changes unlikely.
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How often do birth mothers change their mind about adoption?

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Birth mothers are more likely to change their mind at different stages of their pregnancy than in others. From the initial contact until the time that they’re connected with a birth family, lots of things can change and it’s easy for them to change their mind, because they have no emotional commitment to the adoption. As they become connected to an adoptive family, as they start telling their community that they’re placing their child for adoption, as they let their doctor know they’re placing their child for adoption, as they work with a local attorney or an adoption agency on the adoption, it becomes less and less likely that they’re going to change their mind, because there’s a momentum that these processes have that builds up over time. And then once the baby is born, the mother while she’s still the legal parent of the child, almost never changes her mind at the hospital. It may be maybe 5% of situations where she changes her mind. And once the child is placed with the adoptive family, I haven’t seen their mom change their mind in 15 years. So it’s very safe at that point. One of the things you’re paying for me or for any lawyer to do is to make sure that your legal rights are protected and you’re not going to be in a position where the mother can come back and reclaim the child.

You may be wondering how often birth mothers change their mind about putting a baby up for adoption. Established adoption attorney, Stephen Ravel, shares statistics and key points of the adoption process that make sudden changes unlikely.

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Stephen Ravel

Adoption Attorney

Stephen Ravel attended UC Berkley for his undergraduate degree and Santa Clara Law School for his law degree. Stephen has been an attorney since 1973, and has been involved with adoption law since 1984. He has handled over 1,300 adoptions since the start of his career. Stephen is married and has three children. His oldest child was adopted from Brazil at birth.

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