Obtaining medical information about the birth mother
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Adoption Attorney Stephen Ravel shares advice for people looking to adopt a child on how to best go about obtaining relevant medical information about the birth mother
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My clients are always very concerned about the medical information about the birth mother.
The first thing I do when I talk to a birth mother is send her a form, that's a medical history form, have her fill that out. Have her fill out a medical release form. When I get that back, I copy it, and send it to the client. I send a medical release to her doctor. A couple of days later, I will give the doctor a call and find out how the doctor is perceiving the pregnancy is progressing.
If there are any medical issues that the clients need to be aware of. I will share that information with the client. If I can, I'll get a copy of the doctor's charts. Send that to the client, have their OBGYN review the medical records.
Finally, when the birth mother signs her consent for the adoption, the social worker will also take a medical history, which will also be provided to the adopting parents.
There is a number of ways you get the information. It's never going to be as much as you have about yourself, but you try and get as much as you can. With respect to the birth father, you are probably not going to get as much information because he's not going to be around to give that information.
Adoption Attorney Stephen Ravel shares advice for people looking to adopt a child on how to best go about obtaining relevant medical information about the birth mother
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Stephen RavelAdoption 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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