When you send out research on birthmother reactions to adoption agencies.

Hi Jan, I was researching Planned Parenthood and their affiliations to adoption agencies and came across Adoption Affiliates Website. I don’t want to come across as really nasty at all, but this following quote is just so wrong. It is really a lie.

How will I feel about the adoption after it’s over?
Most birth parents feel sadness, at first, about not being able to raise their child. But when you know that you made the adoption decision because you wanted the best for the child — the sadness is gradually replaced by a sense of peace and self-forgiveness. Most birth parents are thrilled to hear from the adoptive family. And they realize that postponing parenting now gives them a chance to get better prepared to be a good and happy parent in the future.

The truth is, and something that I hope you will change and tell prospective mothers that the loss INCREASES over time. As well as making them more liable for many long term ramifications including secondary infertility, PTSD, addictions, and increased overwhelming life long grief.

I hope that you can take a minute to read over these facts from doctors and other researchers. The evidence is documented and has been known for quite a while. It is just unethical, IMO, to tell woman considering adoption that they “get a sense of peace” when it is generally false. It’s false advertising, and borders on coercion as you are denying them information that allows them to make a truly informed decision. They should know that their chances living with these kinds of results and consequences are real and work that into the plan for their pregnancy.
I understand that you have a business to run, but woman in crisis pregnancy look to you as the professionals, the ones who care for them and their babies, they ones who have acess to this kind of information, Your social workers on staff have a code of ethics to uphold. All I ask is that you review the research and provide that information accordingly. It is only fair and just and right.
I should know. My own “perfect” plan for my first born son’s adoption is now darkly colored as I have found out what information has been withheld from my decision making process. It’s a lousy place to be. Please do not contribute to that.

Research and Studies on birth mothers

Research tells us that the birth mothers I worked with were not exceptions.
In 1982, Edward Rynearson, Ph.D. described the experience of twenty of his
adult patients who, as teenagers, surrendered their first child to adoption.
“Nineteen of them established an intense private monologue with the fetus
(during pregnancy), including a rescue fantasy in which they and the newborn
infant could somehow be “saved” from the relinquishment” (Chesler).
The pressure upon these mothers was one they could not stop. Sixty-nine
percent of 334 birth mothers surveyed felt they were pressured into
surrendering (Deykin). Another study reports forty-four percent of 350
birth mothers surveyed surrendered against their will. The study revealed the
reasons for surrender centered around being single, poverty, young age, and
parental pressure (VanKeppel). Some birth mothers told me they were shipped
off to a home for unwed mothers, and told not to come home until they rid of
the problem. For them there was no choice; they had no where to go.

The adoption experience for most birth mothers leaves a large emotional scar.
According to the authors of “The Adoption Triangle: The Effects of Sealed
Records on Adoptees, birth parents and Adoptive Parents,” most birth mothers
expressed feelings of loss, pain and mourning that remained undimmed with
time (Sorosky). A University of California, at Los Angeles, psychiatrist and
author, Arthur Sorosky, M.D., likened the emotional scarring from
surrendering a child to a psychological amputation (Sorosky).

The pain of the experience was hard to bear. As time went by the pain did
not diminish, it increased. Robin Winkler, Ph.D. of the Institute for Family
Studies, Melbourne, Victoria, reports that ninety percent of birth mothers
surveyed felt deeply harmed by the adoption and the pain increased with time
(BIRCO-Winkler). Drs. Harriet Ganson and Judith Cook found, “birth mothers
expressed deep anguish over adoption” (BIRCO-Ganson). Phyllis Silverman,
Ph.D., who has studied birth mothers for twenty years, on behalf of Mary Beth
Whitehead testified that ninety-five percent of the women she has studied
found their loss shattering and worse than they imagined (Chesler).

The effect of the pain felt by birth mothers manifests itself in many ways.
Sorosky tells us that most birth mothers do not enter psychotherapy because
they surrendered a child; they push that experience to the subconscious.
However, it often surfaces as the key to their inability to cope (Sorosky).
birth mothers seek therapy for numerous reasons:

Kaiser-Permanente Health Care conducted a study in 1979 of birth mothers who
surrendered babies. Forty percent reported depression as the most common
emotional disorder. Sixty percent reported medical, sexual and psychiatric
problems. (BIRCO-Kaiser)
In another study 20 of 22 birth mothers sought psychotherapy for problems
including depression alienation, physical complaints with no biological
basis, sexual difficulties and difficulty making commitments (Millen).

Phyllis Silverman, Ph.D., interviewed fifty birth mothers and found many were
not aware until years later they were grieving. “They all reported a sense
of malaise. Still other birth mothers become weepy, restless, anxious and
forgetful” (Silverman).

birth mothers were not prepared for the aftermath of the surrender. They were
told by the adoption professionals involved that it would be over soon; they
would forget the experience; go on with their life and have more children.
It worked that way for very few, if any. In the thousands of reunions I am
aware of, there is only one birth mother who does not remember the
experience. That one was in an accident, resulting in full amnesia of all
personal history before the accident.
In time birth mothers do go on with the day-to-day tasks, but it proved
impossible for most to pick-up where they left off before becoming pregnant.
In Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience, Betty Jean Lifton, Ph.D.,
describes what birth mothers were told. “The social worker said it would hurt
for a while, and then they would forget, as if they had experienced nothing
more serious than a nine-month stomach ache. They found they could not go
back to the life they had left behind because they had become different
people in the process of becoming mothers” (Lifton). Carole J. Anderson,
M.S.W., J.D., in her booklet, Eternal Abuse of Women: Adoption Abuse,
explains this in another way. “Adoption is not the end of a painful chapter,
but the beginning of a lifetime of wondering, worrying, and missing the
child. It is a wound that time cannot heal…it is a limbo loss” (Anderson).
A limbo loss is what the families of MIA (missing in action) soldiers
experience. There is no finality; not to know whether the loved one is alive
or dead. Always waiting and hoping he or she will be found.
*******************************************************************************
True some birth mothers did marry, and have other children. However,
according to research, far too many did not have another child, 20 to 30% by
choice (Anderson, Deykin), and others suffered a secondary infertility rate
170% higher than the general population (Deykin).
*******************************************************************************
Ninety-six percent of birth mothers want a reunion (Ganson, Deykin

MORE:

PSYCHOLOGICAL DISABILITY IN BIRTH MOTHERS.

Condon. J.T. 1986. Existing evidence suggests that the experience of relinquishment renders a woman at high risk of psychological (and possibly physical) disability. Moreover very recent research indicates that actual disability or vulnerability may not diminish even decades after the event.

Condon defines how the relinqishment experience differs from perinatal bereavement in four crucial psychological aspects.

Firstly: although construed as “voluntary” most relinquishing mothers feel the relinquishment is their only option in the face of financial hardship, pressure from family, professionals and social stigma associated with illegitimacy.

Secondly: their child continues to exist and develop while remaining inaccessible to them, and one day may be reunited with them. The situation is analogous to that of relatives of servicemen “missing believed dead”. The reunion fantasy renders it impossible to “say goodbye” with any sense of finality. Disabling chronic grief reactions were particularly common in the war in such relatives.

Thirdly: the lack of knowledge of the child permits the development of a variety of disturbing fantasies, such as the child being dead, or ill, unhappy or hating his or her relinquishing mother. The guilt of relinquishment is thereby augmented.

Fourthly: the women perceive their efforts to acquire knowledge about their child (which would give them something to let go of) as being blocked by an uncaring bureaucracy. Shawyer describes poignantly how “confidential files are tauntingly kept just out of reach, across official desks”. Thus the anger that is associated with the original event is kept alive and refocused onto those who continue to come between mother and child.

On a study of twenty women who relinquished their baby, all but two of them reported strong feelings of affection for the infant, both during the late pregnancy and in the immediate post partum period. None reported negative feelings toward the child.

Feelings of sadness or depression at the time of relinquishment were rated on the average as intense and “the most intense ever experienced”. Anger at the time of relinquishment was rated at the time as between “a great deal and intense”. Only 33% reported a decrease over time, and over one half said their anger had increased. Guilt at the time was rated as “intense” with only 17% reporting a decrease over the intervening years.

Almost all the women reported they had received little or no help from family, friends or professionals. Over half of them had used alcohol or sedative medication to help them cope after relinquishment. Almost all reported that they dealt with their distress by withdrawing and bottling up their feelings. One third had subsequently sought professional help.

A most striking finding in the present study is that the majority of these women reported no diminution of their sadness, anger and guilt over the considerable number of years which had elapsed since their relinquishment. A significant number actually reported an intensification of these feelings especially anger.

Taken overall, the evidence suggests that over half of these women are suffering from severe and disabling grief reactions which are not resolved over the passage of time and which manifest predominantly as depression and psychosomatic illness.

A variety of factors operated to impede the grieving process in these women. Their loss was not acknowledged by family and professionals, who denied them the support necessary for the _expression of their grief. Intense anger, shame and guilt complicated their mourning, which was further inhibited by the fantasy of eventual reunion with their child. Many were too young to have acquired the ego strength necessary to grieve in an unsupported environment.

Few had sufficient contact with the child at birth or received sufficient information to enable them to construct an image of what they had lost. Masterson (1976) has demonstrated that mourning cannot proceed without a clear mental picture of what has been lost.

The notion that maternal attachment can be avoided by a brisk removal of the infant at birth and the avoidance of subsequent contact between mother and child is strongly contradicted in recent research. Condon and others have demonstrated an intense attachment to the unborn child in most pregnant women.

There is a strong impression from data that over-protectiveness is part of the phenomenon of unresolved grief and serves both to assuage guilt and compensate for the severe blow dealt by relinquishment to the self esteem in the area of being a “good mother”.

The relatively high instance of pregnancy during the year after relinquishment invites speculation that this represents a maladaptive coping strategy that involves a “replacement baby”.

WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN. MARCH 5-6. 1983. MOTHERS SUFFER AFTER ADOPTION.

Danielle Robinson. Quote. “Research has found that the forgotten natural mothers of adopted children are suffering serious psychological problems up to forty years after being parted from their children”.

The research financed by the Institute of Family Studies has found that many mothers never get over the trauma of giving up their babies.

The research also found that of at least 50% of the women studied, a deep sense of loss had never left them since the time of relinquishment of their babies. In many of these mothers their sense of loss only got worse with time and in some cases lasted forty years, Professor Winkler said.

Most women found it difficult to cope and some needed psychological help to come to terms with their sense of loss.

Professor Winkler and fellow researcher Ms. Margaret Van Kepple were struck by the enormity of the response the women gave to the study and were alarmed by the strong emotions expressed.

1991.

IMPACT OF GRIEF TO birth mothers.

Lavonne. H. Shiffler. 1991.

Shiffler quotes Butterfield and Scaturo (1989), therapists who specialize in child bearing loss and who recognize a pattern of stages in birth mothers grieving process: denial, shock, disbelief, and numbing: guilt: anger: yearning: longing and searching: depression, disorganization, despair and integration. They (Butterfield) emphasize that this is an ongoing nonlinear process.

Butterfield continues, a birth mother does not just grieve for a few months and it’s over. She may not feel her grief initially, but will find it surfacing later in her life cycle (i.e. at a reunion or the birth of a grandchild). She may not start grieving until as many as forty years later, in a support group, where she is free to talk, to open the closet and take out the grief piece by piece.

Many birth mothers have reported extended periods of depression, anxiety, feeling suicidal, as well as alcohol and drug use, and poor physical health immediately following the relinquishment. In many instances the mother didn’t necessarily attribute these physical and emotional disturbances to the loss of their child, primarily because they had been led to believe they would not suffer and if they did, it would be short lived.

1993.
POST TRAUMATIC STRESS IN birth mothers.

Sue Wells, giving extracts in her presentation to a conference in Amsterdam based on her research into post traumatic stress (PSTD) which is defined as the development of symptoms following a psychologically distressing event that is outside of the usual human experience. Serious attention is now being given to the trauma attached to the separation and loss of the mother and child through adoption, and the profound and long term effects this can have on both of them.

A survey conducted on 300 birth mothers suggested that the loss of their children constitutes a trauma which may be life long. Almost half of them say it had affected their physical health, and almost all say it affected their mental health. This in turn has affected their interpersonal relationships with family, partners and the parenting of subsequent children.

Symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Many birth mothers say they split themselves off from their trauma as a coping mechanism. This avoidance as a strategy is one of the key symptoms of PTSD which Allison says may be caused by the trauma being internalised to avoid immediate pain. Many say they escaped into drugs and alcohol or precocious sexual activity, especially in the year or so after relinquishment. Most say they felt numb, shocked, empty, sad and many said they felt the same way many years later.

The distress associated with the loss may cause Psychogenic Amnesia which many mothers have verified by saying they are unable to recall important events associated with the birth or adoption.

Strategies for reducing distress means that exposure or events associated with the trauma, e.g. anniversaries, childs birthday, Christmas, family gatherings etc, are experienced by all the birth mothers in the sample as painful or causing “intense psychological distress”.

Psychic numbing, where the birth mother feels detached or estranged from others who have not been through the same experience is also substantiated early on. The burden of secrecy can perpetuate this.

Difficulty in forgiving their own parents whom many saw as instrumental in the loss of their babies has affected their subsequent family relationships.

Lack of a positive image of their future is another symptom described by Allison where guilt feeling about what they had to do in order to survive is very much an issue with many of the birth mothers.

Recurrent dreams or nightmares where the trauma is relived is characteristic of some mothers experience, especially early after the relinquishment.

Elsewhere it is stated that symptoms of depression and anxiety are commonly associated with PTSD.

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1996.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY.

Logan. J, 1996, reports on the findings of a study conducted by the Mental Health Foundation which examined the experiences and needs of birth mothers who relinquished children for adoption.

Adoption is a violent act, a political act of aggression towards a woman who has supposedly offended the sexual mores by committing the unforgivable act of not supressing her sexuality, and therefore not keeping it for trading purposes through traditional marriage. . . the crime is a grave one, for she threatens the very fabric of our society. The penalty is severe. She is stripped of her child by a variety of subtle and not so subtle manoeuvres and then brutally abandoned. How many are set free? How many (birth mothers) remain trapped inside an emotional nightmare with unresolved death as a lonely companion? (Shawyer.1979).

Historically, birth parents have been the most neglected party in the adoption triangle: both in the literature and in the practice they have been afforded little attention compared with the adopted people and the adoptive parents.

Shawyers analysis showed that birth mothers are deemed to have wronged, need to be punished and are therefore not worthy of attention. A study by Baran et al. . (1977) revealed bias and ambiguity in the attitudes of mental health professionals towards women who relinquished their children.

On interviewing mental health staff they were told that these women had sinned, suffered and deserved to be left alone. While Baran’s research was conducted some time ago, the findings in this study indicate little positive change.

Perhaps the most important findings of this study and one that has not been reported elsewhere, is the way in which the medical profession responds to birth mothers. Research has shown that relatively few women who suffer depression are referred by their GPs for specialist psychiatric help. Yet this study has demonstrated that a significant proportion of birth mothers (32%) were referred to specialist services. The referral rate of relinquishing women therefore is considerably higher than that of women in the general population who suffer depression.

This raises some interesting questions: given the pivotal role of GPs in defining the boundaries of mental illness, are birth mothers more seriously mentally ill than other women that suffer depression? Is this therefore an indication of the impact of relinquishment or an indication of the way they are perceived by the medical profession?