Medical Information

Travel Medical Information for Parents
Organizations with information about travel and health
International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers (IAMAT) will give you a world directory of physicians.

417 Center Street

Lewiston, New York 14092

(716) 754-4883



CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Gives health risk info for countries

888 232-3228 or http://www.cdc.gov/travel/travel.html



Shoreland's Travel Health online web site--has health and safety information on 220 countries

http://www.tripprep.com



Insurance
Make sure your insurance covers you when you are in Russia. We understand there are places to get temporary insurance if it does not, but we don't have particular information on this.



Immunizations for you and your current children
Be sure to talk to a travel doctor or go to a travel clinic. Which immunizations are suggested vary. We were given multiple Hepatitis B and A vaccinations, a polio booster, and a typhoid immunization. Your children at home should also be immunized, in case they catch something from your Russian child after he/she comes home.



What to eat and what not to eat
Talk to a travel doctor or clinic! Ours gave us advice about diseases and food and gave us strong antibiotics, just in case. She also suggested we take Immodium for milder stomach upset.



As for the food, only drink canned or bottled drinks or beverages made with boiled water. Do not drink the tap water and avoid ice cubes. Try to make sure the bottled water you use is not just refilled from a tap (carbonated is safer to avoid this risk). Use bottled water to brush your teeth. Avoid leafy and uncooked vegetables (no salads). Eat fruits, nuts and vegetables only if their skin is intact and you peel them yourself, without contaminating the inside. Well-cooked vegetables are probably fine. Meats should be well-done and very hot. Bread is probably safe, as is a dry rice dish. Avoid cold meat platters, mayonnaise and creamy desserts, buffets and food from street vendors. Don't eat dairy products, which are unpasteurized. Be sure eggs are well-cooked and not runny. Always wash hands before eating. Airplane food on flights inside of Russia is included in these cautions.



Because of these risks, we ended up eating a lot of borscht (vegetable soup) without the sour cream (because it's dairy) and bread. We also had some well-cooked meat and rice in restaurants. For breakfast, blini (pancakes) worked well, and eggs if they were well-cooked.



Be careful not to be offensive to the Russians about this--don't talk to the people who are preparing food for you or who live in Russia about their contaminated food. Just order only what you want to eat, and if you get something you are nervous about, leave it on your plate.



Medical information about the adopted child
The information that you receive about your child (if you receive any) before your first trip may be alarming. But many of the medical conditions are not as bad as they appear. Most children in an orphanage seem to have been diagnosed with rickets, anemia, encephelopathy, and various other diseases. Rickets is a vitamin D deficiency, anemia is an iron deficiency, and encephelopathy is their word for being behind in development. All of these are reversible. Many children (50% in our orphanage) are also diagnosed with a false chord of the left ventricle of the heart, which our pediatrician believes is called pre-ventricular contraction in America, and is a very minor, common condition in children.

Of course, some of the children do have alarming medical conditions in addition to these, and this is why you should contact a doctor in the US who is an adoption specialist. These doctors can look over the medical information about your child before your first trip and tell you what might be a concern and what to expect. This is very helpful, because many of the Russian medical terms translated into English don't make sense to regular American doctors. Your agency should have names and phone numbers for these doctors (they can do it all over the phone). Here is the contact information for adoption doctors we know of: http://comeunity.com/adoption/health/clinics.html; http://www.orphandoctor.com/; http://www.pedes.umn.edu/IAC/default.html; http://www.russianadoption.org/; http://www.nemc.org/adoption/.

Sometimes you might want to get additional medical information about your child before you travel. You can request it, but it may or may not actually appear. You may go knowing very little about the medical state of your child.



After you get the child home, make sure you encourage your pediatrician to run all of the tests that the adoption specialist doctor suggests. Even pediatricians who have dealt with adopted children before may not be familiar with what should be tested, but the adoption specialist doctor will know.



One more medical note about the adopted child: When you are in Moscow you will have a visit with a doctor before you can take the child out of the country. This is a very basic physical exam.



You might consider bringing some medicines with you on your second trip. Tylenol or Advil for pain, cough medicine in case the child is congested, lice treatment (we understand some orphanages have a problem with this), and an antibiotic cream for cuts and scrapes. Also bring bandaids. Be sure to talk to your doctor in the US before you go about dosages for all of these medicines if your child is under the age of two.