Open adoption: the experiences of six birth mothers involved in open adoption with the adoptive parents and the children they relinquished for adoption

Abstract

This research is a pilot study of six birth mothers' involvement with open adoption. The aim of this work was to describe these women's experiences in order to ascertain whether direct contact with the child and the adoptive parents significantly helped them to cope with relinquishing their children for adoption. The method used to carry out this study was personal interviews arranged in a loosely structured manner with a series of open-ended questions. Each birth mother was interviewed once to gather the information and was later given this information to check the accuracy of the recording. The birth mothers were selected from the caseloads of social workers from the Wellington office of the Department of Social Welfare. The children that these women had relinquished were all under five years old at the time the adoption became open. The findings of this study have some important implications for social work practice. All of the birth mothers saw the adoptive parents' openness towards contact as a vital element in reassuring them they had made the right decision in choosing adoption for their child. The social worker's attitude toward open adoption had a strong impact on these women's feelings about it as an option. Although adoption was the only choice for most of these birth mothers, they were all definite that open adoption was a far more positive option than closed adoption. All of the women felt that contact was at the discretion of the adoptive parents, and felt they were privileged to be able to see how the child was progressing. All of the birth mothers were clear that the adoptive parents were firmly in the parental role and felt that the long term aim of the contact was for the sake of the child. The findings of this study make it obvious that social workers need to be aware of the influence that their practice has on the birth mother's decision and be prepared to be more open and flexible in their philosophy.