What should one consider about vaccinations for adopted children, and even for adoptive parents?
The parents, you ask? Parents adopting children may be advised to get vaccines they may not already have been given. For example, although most children today are routinely given Hepatitis B vaccines, they were not routinely given when most of us were kids and many adults have not had them. People traveling to Asia to pick up their children are advised to get them. In fact, there is a higher rate of Hepatitis B in Asia and parents adopting from there may be advised to get the vaccine even if they are having a worker escort the child home. I believe people adopting domestically may also wish to get this vaccine, since no one can be quite sure whether the birthmother is a carrier or not.
Parents may also need to get a Hepatitis A vaccine when traveling. This is recommended even for certain states in the US, but not all. Ask your doctor for advice. There are also vaccines specific to each country, for example typhoid vaccine for parts of India and anti-malarial pills to take for different parts of the world.
If siblings are traveling, make sure they have appropriate vaccinations. Remember diseases like polio are not eradicated in some countries. Many people in the US are unaware of the number of children who die or experience brain damage from diseases like whooping cough or measles which are seldom seen here today.
Children adopted older than newborn stage may not have had the appropriate vaccines given at birth. Even for newborns, the procedures for vaccinations, hearing screens, preventative eye drops, and tests for PKU and other disorders may be different if the child is born in a different state than yours.
Try to get a child’s complete medical record for your child’s doctor to view. Ask the doctor to set up a schedule of catch-up vaccinations if needed. Some vaccines have multiple parts, for example the second dose must be given four weeks after the first dose, and the third dose five months after the second.
If the child is from another country, your doctor may wish to consult with a doctor experienced in adoption medicine. They may know which vaccinations are likely given in that country and whether they are of high quality or should be repeated. Again setting up a catch-up vaccine schedule is important.
When the child is a toddler, the doctor may also run blood tests called “titers” to determine if previous vaccinations have been successful in producing antibodies. Our daughter had received the full set of Hepatitis B vaccines in Korea, and the doctor trusted their quality. However, our daughter, who showed immunity originally, had no immunity by 18 months. Therefore we knew her antibodies had been from her birthmother—these can stay in a child’s body for about 18 months. The vaccines had never taken, probably, the doctor felt, because of stress.
For an older child on a catch-up schedule, the doctor may be able to write a note enabling a child to go to school without having had all the vaccines normally required. Since there must be waiting times between doses of certain vaccines, it may not be medically possible to give all required vaccines in time for a child to start school.
Vaccines are an important safeguard. It can be complex to piece together medical records or to start vaccine series over again, but it’s worth taking the time to be sure about.
Please see these related blogs:
What Is An Adoption Doctor and Why Would I Need One?
What An Adoption Doctor Did for Us
What An Adoption Doctor Did for Us, Part Two