About Our Pre-Adoption Services
What can we expect from a consultation with your clinic?
After pre-reviewing available medical records, growth data, and photos/video, our doctors typically provide a 30-45 minute phone consultation that takes you in detail through the available information and your concerns. We perform consultations for children referred from all countries, including the US.
Our consultation will focus on notable growth trends, explanations of foreign medical diagnoses with opinions on which are more or less worrisome, and assessment of developmental progress. We will also analyze photos and video for features of FAS or other syndromes, interaction with caregivers, and signs of developmental issues. We're happy to answer any questions you have about your referral, travel issues, or the post-adoption adjustment period.
Unfortunately, we lack a crystal ball, but we will provide a rough overall risk assessment of future medical or developmental special needs, based on our years of experience evaluating similar referrals and following adoptees in our pediatric clinic.
We have unique expertise on these issues from providing over 10,000 (wow!) pre-adoption consultations since 1998, following children in our primary care pediatric practice where over half of our patients are adoptees, and working as staff pediatricians at the UW Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Clinic. As academic pediatricians on staff at the University of Washington Medical Center and Children's Hospital in Seattle, we have close ties to other pediatric specialties, which can be invaluable when evaluating children with identified special needs.
We will then send you a "wishlist" of follow-up questions that you can forward to your agency and/or bring with you when you travel. We are happy to review any follow-up information, and typically respond by email to updates, unless there are more concerning or complicated issues better discussed with a phone call.
During your travels, on call support by email is included with our consultation. This has been invaluable for families faced with surprise medical or developmental concerns or illness during travel. If there have been concerns about FAS facial features we are often able to analyze your emailed photographs using specialized FAS facial analysis software.
We also provide prescription forms for travel that include a broad-spectrum antibiotic, eye ointment, medication for impetigo and other skin infections, scabies treatment, multivitamins with iron, and sterile needles/syringes.
Finally, we're happy to help find an adoption-savvy pediatrician in your area, or help guide the post-adoption workup if you do not live near an adoption specialist. If you are interested in a post-placement evaluation with us, you can call 206-598-3000 for post-adoption scheduling, ideally as soon as you have your travel plans.
How do we schedule a consultation?
If you are seeking a pre-adoption consultation appointment now, please email or call Cyndi, our coordinator. The email is adoption@uw.edu and the number for pre-adoption services is (206)598-3006. Most referral materials can be forwarded by email. If you are shipping your materials, please let us know so that your appointment can be scheduled in the meantime.
The initial consultation will be scheduled as soon as possible, usually within 1-3 days of your contact with us. We make every effort to accommodate more urgent requests as well.
Our fees are $550 for a first time consult, $750 if two children are reviewed. The services include the initial consultation by phone, sub-specialty consultation as needed, update reviews, on call support during your travels, and prescriptions for the child's trip home. Discounts apply if you need to consult with us on more than one child for your adoption.
If you are traveling "blind" to select a child overseas and cannot consult before traveling, the fees are higher for same-day consults from overseas. Please email or call before travel and we will send you information about this service.
