Babies

Roughly around 50,000 babies are adopted domestically and internationally each year. The demand for infant adoptions are among the highest in the adoption community. Although many of these children are healthy and many of the baby adoptions that happen domestically are "placed" before they're even born, there are some advantages and disadvantages to adopting babies. Adopting a baby has its advantages for many first-time parents who want to feel in control of their child's environment from birth as well as the desire to watch the child grow from infancy. A disadvantage, however, is the nerve-wrecking placement process, which depends heavily on a birth mother.

Babies are loosely defined at children between the age of zero and two years, during which they're developmentally transitioning from infancy to childhood.

Adopting babies requires a lot of face-time with an adoptive parent and the child, as the most important thing for babies' development is bonding. While the baby is still under a year, face-time, skin-to-skin contact, tandem movement, singing and talking are all ways in which the child can bond with a parent. Overall, closeness and responsiveness to a baby's needs are key to the infant stage of babies' development.

By the time children are a year old, they are still considered babies, but one-year-olds can wave, exhibit basic motor skills, sit up or walk and interact with emotions of those around them. Their vocabulary can also jump from three to 250 words in just a year.