How long after you have a baby can you decide to give it up for adoption? What if its born with defects?

Question

What I mean is, if you are pregnant and are planning on keeping your child, but once its born you come to realize that it has birth defects (mentally retarded, down syndrome, ect) can you THEN decide that you want to put it up for adoption? I guess my question is what is the legal time frame after you have a baby that you can give it up for adoption? (I am not asking if its morally right or not, just wanna know when you can decide to give a baby up for adoption)

Answer 1

I am pretty sure you can place a child into social services at any time while they are under age so you definitely could after a child is born, no matter what their status is as far as health. It is not unheard of for mothers to make that decision after birth. Many parents aren't financially or emotionally equipped to handle a child with special needs and so they make that choice and not all birth defects are known before birth.

Answer 2

up until 18 years of age, but why would you, no matter what that is your kid and that will never change.

Answer 3

18 yrs

Answer 4

Anytime after birth you can choose to place. Some kids in foster care are there because their parents couldn't care for their special needs themselves.

Answer 5

Any time. Up until the child turns 18.

Answer 6

You can give a child up for adoption at any point up to 18 years of age. Some parents do that because they dont have the money to care for the childs needs and in foster care the child gets medicaid which the parents may not have qualified for.

Answer 7

You can decide to give a child up for adoption at any time in a child's life. There is no limit in the age the child can be. However, an infant is easily placed in a family that is looking to adopt -- there are far more people looking to adopt infants than there are infants available for adoption. This is not true with older children. The older the child gets, the more difficult it is for them to be placed with a family that is interested in adoption. Older children often get placed in foster homes and sometimes end up lliving in the foster care system for a long time or even until they are adults. This can be difficult for the child because they may end up being moved from one foster home to another and they have no say in the matter. It is a very unstable way for a child to grow up. That said, there is o question that healthy babies are easily adopted and they don't have to be newborns, although newborns are the most in demand and the easiest to find homes for. The system doesn't work along the lines of you can decide at any point in the child's life that you want to give the child up for adoption and then just do it. There are procedures involved (legally and emotionally) and the child would most likely be placed in a foster home while these were being worked out. A child is not free to be adopted until you and the child's father have given up your rights to the child. That has to happen before the child can be adopted.

As far as children with disabilities being adoptable, it varies. You are free to sign over your rights to any child at any time but, that is not something to be taken lightly. Depending on the severity of the child's disabilities, it could take a long time for the child to be adopted or it could be almost as fast a process as for healthy babies. It varies a lot with each individual situation.

Answer 8

i think you can at any time especially if they have special needs you could just say that you cant take proper care of them. you just have to go and like sign your rights away but they would probably investigate if you had other children. but i do think that would be messed up