The Most Common Types of Adoption

What Types of Adoption Are There?

From semi-open adoption to open adoption, there are many different paths you can take on your adoptive journey.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide which path is best, and this guide should help you decide which type of adoption is best for you and your family. Below, we’ve listed three types of adoption relationships you can pursue.

1.      Open Adoption

Open adoption is one of the most common types of adoption and is recommended for adoptive families and birth parents who want to get to know each other before and after the adoption.

This type of adoption generally refers to sharing identifying information, usually without an adoption professional’s help.

When you work with American Adoptions, we require that adoptive families are open to a certain amount of contact throughout the adoption.

This is because we’ve seen how successful an open adoption can be for everyone in the adoption triad. Some of the benefits of choosing an open adoption include:

Once you find an open adoption opportunity, you’ll establish an agreement on just how much contact you want to have throughout your adoption and beyond.

For most adoptive families that choose this type of adoption, you’ll trade identifying information such as last names, personal email addresses and any other information to help maintain contact.

To get started with your open adoption journey, you can always fill out this contact form to get free information from one of our adoption specialists.

2. Semi-Open/Mediated Adoption

Semi-open adoption has become more popular and is the most common type of adoption.

This type of adoption involves an adoption professional who facilitates the communication between adoptive families and birth parents, or that adoptive families and birth parents communicate directly but preserve some identifying information.

It’s estimated that 95% of all domestic adoptions involve some form of open communication.

One of the biggest advantages of choosing semi-open adoption is that your identifying information is protected.

Many adoption professionals recommend some level of openness throughout the adoption because it’ll help your child be proud of their adoption story.

3. Closed Adoption

Closed adoption is one of the least common types of adoption because many birth parents go through the adoption process expecting some form of contact such as letters or pictures.

When you choose this type of adoption, little, if any, contact is shared between adoptive parents and birth parents in an effort to maintain privacy.

When you’re interested in only closed adoption, it can severely limit the number of adoption opportunities you can receive.

On top of that, any important medical information can be difficult or impossible to find. The medical information received during the adoption is just a glimpse into the birth parents’ and families’ medical histories.