A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: The Decision to Keep Her Child Transformed Their Futures.
Eight months pregnant and in severe pain, a woman named Stephanie visited the medical facility after a serious infection started to spread up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a friend’s yard. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She bent over the bedside and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and get high.”
She had taken the drug before seeking medical help and had sufficient opportunity to get treated before she needed to go home to use once more. She thought she still had a month remaining to plan her recovery and have this baby.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the condition in her limbs was severe, but physicians found she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, her nurse, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would face grave danger.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie measured quantities of fentanyl at regular intervals, knowing that withdrawal could endanger her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in substance abuse treatment.
A short time later, on the 12th of November, Stephanie had a daughter weighing 4lb 8oz – premature, little but surviving.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was detached. Her epidural had failed, her last dose of fentanyl had been administered shortly before she gave birth.
She felt ill. Ill-equipped for parenting. Not fit.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety repeatedly before birth, and felt awful each time she relapsed. She felt without value, criticizing herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “just” stop using. Even her dealer would not provide to her when she became obviously with child.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The pervasive expectation that her love for her baby would make her recover only led to deeper self-loathing and negative self-talk, a cause for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a long-term illness.
The newborn was transferred to the NICU. When Stephanie at last met her, she was attached to medical equipment, so small she thought she would hurt her. Embracing her at last, she felt empty. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘What am I going to do with you?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
After two days she decided to call her daughter Izzie, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Medical personnel told her about Maddie’s Place, a unique recovery environment where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are supported as a unit, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is found to have newborn addiction symptoms every 18 minutes, infants are still rushed to special care and given drugs while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is demonstrating a key fact: when families are kept intact, outcomes improve, fewer children enter care and long-term costs decline.
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 collect her.
She stepped out of the hospital still in detox, fearful and unsure about what would come next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still worried that CPS would come remove her daughter – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The concern persisted: that at any time, someone could arrive and separate them.
For the initial fortnight, Stephanie stayed withdrawn. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Life on the streets, she said, was about survival. Substances came first; trust came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that relationship was delicate. The those close to her always found ways to let her down. She did not know how to love herself, not to mention anyone else.
Daily, staff from Maddie’s Place drove her to a treatment center, provided orally. Over time, she was starting to get clean.
She utilized each moment 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 sensitivity to certain foods and pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had increased sensitivity and required an specialist – all frequent conditions for babies affected by withdrawal.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I could do this. I could be a mom.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie was in the common room, where parents in active addiction can come for monitored interactions with their babies. Katie Bunch-Smith, a peer support specialist, came over with her own children in tow to bring treats. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was seated on the ground holding Izzie.
The kids looked amazed in awe of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They had no care in the world,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She has an image of the moment. She is clad in casual attire, a beanie with a decoration on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the exit nearby. She is slender. Her posture is humble so you miss her features. She is presenting her daughter on her lap for the young ones to see and they are gathered around, admiring and touching to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the mothers: “Why are there no men?” The moms tried to explain that the men were occupied, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if they could.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and her companion made eye contact. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was able. I would become a mother.”
Approaches for managing babies with exposure have been available for years.
The assessment tool was created in 1975|
