Counselling prospective adoptive parents about the mental health of birth parents: what does this mean for the child?

As part of the adoption process in the UK, adoption medical advisors, often community paediatricians, meet prospective adoptive parents to share health information about the child and discuss potential implications for the future. As well as physical health, mental health needs to be addressed especially if there is possible mental illness in the birth parents. However, there is often lack of precise, reliable information available for the birth parents posing a challenge to the counselling process. This article discusses the challenges in addressing the issue of mental health in birth parents and how to approach conversations involving genetic risk when counselling prospective adoptive parents.