3. Adopted children are not inherently “better” or “worse” than any other children.
Internationally adopted children, who may spend months or years in orphanages, often have transient medical issues such as malnutrition, rickets, or scabies and other infectious diseases, but most of these problems resolve quickly once the child receives proper nutrition and care, says Jane Aronson, M.D., a pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine. Dr. Aronson says that 75 percent of the children she sees arrive with some kind of developmental delay (such as not speaking at age level), but most of these issues resolve over time. All families formed by adoption are going to have their own set of challenges, but on the whole most adopted children are psychologically healthy.
