Most of the children airlifted out of Haiti so far were reportedly well into the process of inter-country adoption before the earthquake struck.

That includes the second airlift of children that originated in Pittsburgh over the weekend, most of whom were picked up in Florida by their adoptive families.

Rumors that some were coming to Pittsburgh proved unfounded.

But what happens to the other children who are still there?

Out-of-country adoption should be the last resort for family placement of children who are not with relatives, according to a set of principles approved recently by the United Nations General Assembly. And there is a growing agreement among a wide spectrum of child welfare groups that the principles make sense and should be followed.

Known as the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, the rules are supposed to govern emergency care of children without families.

It's often hard to know how best to protect children after a disaster like the Haitian quake. Foot-dragging could cost lives, but precipitous action, however well intended, could raise charges of child-snatching,

Faced with fears of the latter, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive on Tuesday blocked 27 children from departing Port-au-Prince and said all further cases of humanitarian parole to the United States would have to complete an as-yet-undefined exit process with his office.

Meanwhile, SOS Children's Villages, which provides last-resort foster care in 123 nations for orphans with no adoption prospects, is urging people to sponsor earthquake orphans rather than try to adopt them before their status is known. In this way, SOS says, children can be kept with their siblings and properly housed, fed and cared for in their own countries, by adults from their own cultures. If families members turn up later, they can be reunited more easily.

"Now is the time to apply the [United Nations] guidelines within a coordinated international relief effort in Haiti," said a statement from the International Social Service U.S. branch, located in Baltimore, and signed by 13 other aid groups.

According to the guidelines, the primary goal should be tracing and reuniting children with their families before any other permanent solution is sought.

"Even in the worst disasters ... most children have extended family members willing and able to care for them," the statement says. "Children in emergency situations should not be moved to another country for ... alternative care except temporarily for compelling health, medical or safety reasons."

If relocation is necessary, the guidelines say, children should be kept as close as possible to their homes, accompanied by caregivers known to them, and with a clear return plan.

The statement calls for the following steps, in order:

1. A register of unaccompanied and separated children.

2. Developing temporary and long-term family-based care.

3. Using residential care only as a temporary measure.

4. Prohibiting new large-scale residential facilities as a long-term solution.

5. Preventing cross-border displacement of children.

"The U.N. doesn't say how to implement the guidelines, but it lays out the principles we can all rally around," said Julie Rosicky, executive director of International Social Service-USA.

"There's a lot more consensus on this among a wide array of providers than there used to be," she added.

Heather Paul, CEO of SOS Children's Villages USA, said the major concern right now is with "newly determined unaccompanied children.

"We don't know if both parents were killed or if they have brothers or sisters. What if they're very young and don't know their last name? The most important thing is to register them as unaccompanied, put them in a safe, secure place with caring adults and attempt reunification."

The priorities, she said, should be as follows: Reunification with parents; then extended biological family care; then in-country adoption; then inter-country adoption. Finally, when all other options are exhausted, she said, there are the SOS villages.

"We reunify brothers and sisters, raise them in-country with native caregivers in a family-based environment until they become self-sufficient adults with a sound education," she said.

SOS has had two villages in Haiti for 30 years, she said. One is in Los Santos, about 12 miles from Port-au-Prince, the other is on the northern coast at Cap-Haitien, Before the quake, they housed 150 and 100 children, respectively. Both will be taking in additional children because of the disaster.

"There are going to many solutions to this problem," Ms. Paul said. "It's not going to be done in one fell swoop. We have to tease out the different conditions for each child as things settle and family situations are confirmed. It's going to take a while."

Not everyone is on board with that.

On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of seven U.S. senators increased the pressure on the American and Haitian governments to rapidly approve the transfer of orphans to American soil -- both those already in the system and the newly orphaned.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., the leader of a group of five Democrats and two Republicans, said she will push forward a pending bill to create a new office within the State Department to handle orphan cases. In addition, the group planned to meet with a Haitian orphan task force assembled by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to find out ways to expedite American adoptions of Haitian children.

But the senators, like other American government officials, were careful to avoid the appearance that they were reaching over Haitian officials.

"We want to work respectfully and in coordination with the Haitian government," Ms. Landrieu said at a news conference Tuesday in Washington.

Ms. Landrieu said there were 380,000 children in Haiti before the quake who had lost at least one parent -- a number that has probably skyrocketed since.

Ms. Paul said most groups would agree that cutting red tape for orphans already in the pipeline would be a good thing, if the holdup was empty bureaucratic forms.

"But all paperwork is not empty," she said. "It is essential that we can absolutely prove children are ready for adoption before we move in that direction."

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