A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Rescued Both Lives.
Eight months pregnant and in severe pain, the expectant mother arrived at the ER after an infection began spreading up her legs. Without a job or home, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a companion's property. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As physicians addressed her infection, she started to feel anxious. Withdrawal was setting in. She slumped forward and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and use drugs.”
She had used fentanyl before arriving at the hospital and had only a brief window to get treated before she was compelled to leave to relapse. She thought she still had four weeks left to figure out how to get clean and deliver her child.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not allowed to leave.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the medical facility declined to release her: the infection in her legs was serious, but physicians found she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would face grave danger.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl every few hours, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a drug that alleviates cravings and is commonly used in addiction recovery.
After five days, on the 12th of November, Stephanie had a infant weighing a small weight – early, little but surviving.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “not now.” She was numb. Her anesthesia was ineffective, her last dose of fentanyl had been administered shortly before she gave birth.
She felt ill. Not ready for motherhood. Not fit.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety repeatedly before birth, and felt terrible each time she was unsuccessful. She felt without value, berating herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An OBGYN told her to “simply” stop using. Even her supplier would not provide to her when she became obviously with child.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The common assumption that her bond with her newborn would make her stop using only led to deeper self-loathing and self-abuse, a cause for her to use again. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could will away a long-term illness.
The infant was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was hooked up to medical equipment, so small she thought she would harm her. Cradling her initially, she felt detached. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to call her daughter the same as her nurse, after the professional who provided support to her.
Medical personnel told her about Maddie’s Place, a innovative treatment home where women and their babies are supported as a unit, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is identified with infant withdrawal condition every 18 minutes, infants are still whisked to NICUs and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a developing system of centers like Maddie’s Place is demonstrating a key fact: when mothers and babies stay together, recovery succeeds, fewer children enter care and overall savings increase.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she finally did. After ensuring she qualified for the program, care providers came to bring her to the facility.
She left the medical center still in recovery, scared and uncertain about what would follow.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still feared that CPS would come remove her daughter – even though she was uncertain about motherhood. The concern persisted: that at any time, someone could walk in and take her baby away.
For the beginning period, Stephanie stayed withdrawn. “I avoided interaction,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about getting by. Drugs came first; trust came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that bond was fragile. The people she loved always found ways to let her down. She was unable to care for herself, much less anyone else.
Each day, staff from the facility drove her to a clinic for methadone, provided orally. Gradually, she was beginning recovery.
She spent every minute outside treatment with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her girl had some trouble feeding at first, with intolerance to some formulas and pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed dietary support. She also had increased sensitivity and required an professional – all frequent conditions for babies born with NAS.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I could do this. I could parent.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where parents in active addiction can come for supervised visits with their babies. An advocate, a mentor, came over with her own family in tow to drop off cookies. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was seated on the ground holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in wonder of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She keeps a photo of the moment. She is wearing dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a beanie with a decoration on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the entryway at her back. She is lean. Her head is tilted forward so you cannot see her face. She is holding Izzie up on her leg for the children to see and they are crowding near, admiring and touching to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the mothers: “Where are all the dads?” The moms tried to explain that the fathers had obligations, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there given the chance.
“When I have kids,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and Bunch-Smith made eye contact. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that infants need affection, then I was able. I could be a mom.”
Methods to address babies with exposure have been used for a long time.
The assessment tool was established in 1975|
