Allergies, Excema and Medical History in Adoption

One of the fears I have always had as an adoptive parent, even before Cooper arrived, was allergies. I realize that even with a bio child, there can be allergies that are unexpected, but with a child who was adopted, there is a lot of family history that you may not know. In my case, I know very little.

When a child is removed from the bio parents care, an extensive medical history is requested from the bio parents. Both parents were present to give information, but the BM was very unsure of her family's history. BD was a little more helpful, but still lacking quite a bit of information. So I have been constantly worried about what could potentially pop-up in the future.

Allergies & Excema, Part One:
My little guy had severe eczema as an infant. It was so bad that he got infections twice on his poor little cheeks, and required rounds of antibiotics. He would also get severe diaper rashes that turned almost immediately into yeast infections, requiring more steroids and antibiotics.

This picture was taken at his baptism, when he was four months old. See how red his cheeks are? That's after four days of antibiotics, and lots of this stuff:

Eucerin Calming Cream. It was recommended by the Dermatologist when the Aquaphor just made his condition worse. If you have a child with excema, this stuff rocks!

Thankfully, Coop seems to have outgrown the worst of it, but we still take precautions with his skin.


Because of the seriousness of his skin condition, our pediatrician suspected he would have allergies as well, so last week, finally, we had him tested. More about the results in my next post. Stay tuned...