1 Child Development Unit, Children's Hospital Medical Center, Boston, MA 02115
2 Department of Maternal and Child Health, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755
3 Dysmorphology Unit, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195
Your committee statement on "Adoption and the Right to Know"1 suggests that "the pediatrician should encourage the adoptive parents to obtain as much medical and background history of the birth parents as possible at the time of the adoption." Our ten-year (1967-1977) review of 1,824 records of children referred to the Dysmorphology Unit of the University of Washington provides data to support this recommendation and enhance the pediatric assessment of adoptive children outlined in the AAP manual.2