Adoption involves many people, and some of the language used to describe those relationships can be unfamiliar when you first begin learning about the process. You may hear the terms birth mother, birth father, biological parent, expectant parent, or birth parents and wonder what each one means.
These terms describe important people in an adoptee's life, but they are more than adoption vocabulary. Birth parents are part of a child's history, identity, family, and story. In an open adoption, they may also remain an active part of that child's life as he or she grows.
Understanding who birth parents are and the role they have in adoption is an important part of understanding adoption itself.
What Is a Birth Mother?
A birth mother is a woman who has given birth to a child who was later adopted. You may also hear biological mother or first mother used, depending on the person and her preference.
Before an adoption actually takes place, however, the woman considering adoption is more accurately described as an expectant mother rather than a birth mother. That distinction is important. Being pregnant and talking to an adoption agency does not make someone a birth mother, nor does beginning an adoption plan guarantee that she will ultimately choose adoption.
An expectant mother is still deciding what she believes is right for herself and her baby. She can explore adoption, meet prospective adoptive families, create a hospital plan, and ask questions without giving up her ability to decide to parent.
After placement, becoming a birth mother does not mean becoming irrelevant to the child's life. She remains the person who carried and gave birth to the child and an important part of the child's family history.
What Is a Birth Father?
A birth father is the biological father of a child who has been adopted. Like birth mothers, birth fathers can have very different circumstances and relationships with adoption.
Some birth fathers are closely involved throughout the pregnancy and adoption process. They may participate in conversations with the expectant mother, meet the prospective adoptive family, and become part of an open adoption relationship.
Other situations are more complicated. The expectant mother and father may no longer be together, their relationship may be difficult, or the father's identity or location may be uncertain.
A birth father's involvement, or lack of involvement, does not mean an expectant mother should assume she cannot explore adoption. Alaska Adoption Services can help her understand the process and what steps may be necessary based on her individual circumstances.
What Does “Birth Parents” Mean?
Birth parents is a collective term used for a child's biological mother and biological father after adoption. It can be convenient when discussing both parents together, but it should not erase the fact that the two people may have very different relationships with the child or adoption.
The birth mother and birth father do not necessarily make decisions together, experience placement in the same way, or maintain the same level of contact afterward. One may have an ongoing relationship with the child while the other does not.
For that reason, it is important to see birth parents as individuals rather than treating them as one part of an adoption arrangement.
Birth Parents Do Not Stop Being Family
Older ideas about adoption often treated placement as though one family disappeared when another family began. Closed adoption practices reinforced that separation by limiting information and contact between birth and adoptive families.
Open adoption recognizes something different: adoption changes legal parenthood, but it does not erase biology, history, or identity.
A child may eventually want to know where certain physical characteristics came from, why an adoption decision was made, what medical conditions exist in the family, or what traditions and cultures are part of his or her background. Birth parents can provide connections to those answers.
In Alaska, those connections may be particularly significant when Alaska Native heritage, tribal relationships, extended family, language, traditions, or a child's home community are part of the story.
What Role Can Birth Parents Have in Open Adoption?
There is no single relationship that defines open adoption. Birth parents and adoptive families may communicate through pictures, messages, phone calls, video calls, visits, or other forms of contact.
The relationship can also develop over time. What works when a child is an infant may look different when that child is six, twelve, or eighteen. Healthy open adoption relationships require communication, flexibility, respect, and a shared commitment to the child's well-being.
Alaska Adoption Services only offers open adoption because we believe children deserve the opportunity to know where they come from. That does not mean every adoption relationship will look identical. It means birth parents are not expected to simply disappear from their child's story after placement.
Birth Parents Are People, Not Adoption Stereotypes
There is no single type of person who becomes a birth parent.
Birth mothers may already be parenting other children. They may be teenagers or adults, financially stable or struggling, living in Anchorage or in a remote Alaska community. Some may be navigating difficult relationships, housing instability, substance use, mental health concerns, or a lack of support. Others may simply decide that parenting another child is not what they want or believe they can do at that point in their lives.
Birth fathers are equally varied. Some are supportive of adoption, some prefer parenting, some are uncertain, and others may have little involvement.
Reducing birth parents to a stereotype misses the individual circumstances behind every adoption.
Birth Parents Are Part of an Adoption for Life
Adoption is not one moment at a hospital or courthouse. For birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive families, it becomes part of a lifelong story.
That is why the language we use matters. Birth mothers and birth fathers should be recognized as real people with relationships, histories, emotions, and important connections to their children.
If you are pregnant and considering adoption in Alaska, you do not need to start thinking of yourself as a birth mother simply because you are exploring the possibility. You are an expectant mother considering your options.
Alaska Adoption Services can answer your questions, explain how birth mothers and birth fathers are involved in the adoption process, and help you understand what an open adoption could look like. Asking those questions does not commit you to adoption. It gives you the information you need to decide what comes next.