Betty Crocker Wannabe has MOVED! I am now blogging solely at A Simply Klassic Home. I am still sharing printables, party ideas, and other inspiration. It's much more streamlined and clean. I hope you will stop by and say follow along there! I have lots of ideas for new printables coming this holiday season!!

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

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...

2 comments:

Cheryl D. said...

I know it's hard not having full genetic info, but as a birth mom, I don't know everything about my family history. And still, things like allergies seem to pop up out of the blue. My daughter's allergic to tree nuts. As far as I know, we have no history of food allergies on either side of our family. Things do come up unexpectedly for anyone. Eczema is a pretty good indicator of allergies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Also, the allergy testing is not always 100 percent accurate--it can give false negatives (it might take a few times of exposure for the body to have a reaction). Good luck!

Rachel said...

That is such a sweet picture of you and him!!

:)