Pediatrician for internationally adopted child

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

We are bringing home our first adopted child from Korea hopefully in a few months. Does anyone have thoughts on whether our pediatrician needs to specialize in internationally adopted children? Any pediatrician recommendations? We live in downtown Silver Spring.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein and his practice has experience in international adoption. Dr. Bernstein will do preadoption consults and evaluate medical info and videos. The practice is located in Silver Spring.

[Anonymous]

PP here. I meant to also say congratulations. It is so exciting when you FINALLY get to bring your children home.

[Anonymous]

Congratulations on bringing your child home! In my experience (my son is from Guatemala) it's not really necessary to use an adoption specialist unless you're concerned about developmental delays for some reason. We're just using a regular pediatrician (in NoVA) but there are so many internationally adopted kids in this area that she's had a lot of experience treating them.

One thing to think about is vaccinations--some pediatricians will insist on starting over with them, not trusting the doctors in whatever country you adopted from to be using the same schedule and formulations (regardless of whether or not you have records). We made sure before we chose her thatt our pediatrician was willing to do titers for the immunizations our son was supposed to have so he wouldn't have to have all his shots again.

[Anonymous]

Both Dr. David Nelson and Dr. Miriam Toporowicz at Georgetown specialize in International adoptions.