From Carrie Craft,
Your Guide to Adoption / Foster Care.
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Some adoptive parents choose international adoptions because foster children in the United States have “too much baggage”. Some adoptive parents don’t realize that the reasons children are in the foster care system in the United States are the same reasons they are in orphanages in other countries. The reasons includes:

• Poverty
• Parents are incarcerated
• Parents abuse drugs/alcohol
• Parents suffer from a mental or physical illness
• Parents had their rights terminated due to abuse (sexual, physical, and mental) or neglect
• Parents could not care for a child with a serious medical condition
• Parents are low functioning mentally and are unable to care for the child

The reasons listed above that afflict many children within foster care in the U.S. are some of the same reasons that children are in orphanages awaiting homes around the world. Therefore; understanding the role that past abuse, neglect, drugs, alcohol, and the loss of birth family and ultimately birth country can help preadoptive parents in successfully parenting a child who has been adopted overseas.

It is true that an adoptive parent can't plan for every challenge; there are some things that an adoptive parent can do while planning to parent the international adopted child.

_{Resources:
Physician: Detrimental Effects of Institutions & Orphanages by Geroge Rogu, M.D.}