Unplanned Pregnancy? The Benefits of Adoption

There are proven benefits to adoption. Although it doesn’t make an unplanned pregnancy or your choice easier, the way to make the best choice for you and your baby is to consider the pros and cons carefully.

There will likely never be another decision in your life that will be more difficult — placing your child for adoption is a serious decision. It will change your life and your child’s.

Although choosing to place your child for adoption will involve feelings of grief and loss, many parents can make peace with their decision and feel reassurance by having the control and ability to interview and select a loving family for their child according to their wishes. This can also include open adoption, where a specific level of contact agreed upon by birth and adoptive parents can be arranged.

When birth parents, who are facing an unplanned pregnancy, are in situations where they are not able to parent their child, adoption can lead to benefits, including:

Birth mothers who are1:

  • More likely to finish school, pursue higher education, and attain better employment.
  • Less likely to live in poverty and receive public assistance.
  • More likely to delay marriage longer but marry and have less likelihood of divorce.
  • No more likely to suffer depression than single parents.
  • More likely to attain support of government programs, such as job training, supplemental education, and family planning.

And children who are2:

  • Less likely to live in households below poverty status.
  • More likely to live in safe neighborhoods.
  • More likely to have health insurance than children in the general population.
  • In excellent or very good health (85%).
  • Read and sang to daily compared to half of non-adopted children.
  • More likely to participate in extracurricular activities.
  • More likely to eat dinner with their family an average of six days a week.
  1. Based on “Adoption Outcomes,” Marripedia
  2. Based on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2007 National Survey of Adoptive Parents.