Fentanyl Addiction During Pregnancy: How Keeping Her Baby Rescued Both Lives.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, a woman named Stephanie visited the ER after an infection began spreading up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, separated from loved ones, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a companion's property. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As physicians addressed her infection, she began to panic. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She leaned over the bed and vomited.
Stephanie ultimately gave in. “I have to get out of here. I have to go home and take a hit.”
She had taken the drug before arriving at the hospital and had only a brief window to get treated before she had to return to get high again. She thought she still had four weeks left to plan her recovery and give birth.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the infection in her legs was critical, but doctors had discovered she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would not survive.
The nurse convinced the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl at regular intervals, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
After five days, on the 12th of November, Stephanie delivered a daughter weighing 4lb 8oz – premature, little but surviving.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “no.” She was detached. Her pain relief did not work, her final administration of fentanyl had been provided four hours before delivery.
She felt unwell. Ill-equipped for parenting. Unworthy.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety multiple times while expecting, and felt awful each time she was unsuccessful. She felt without value, criticizing herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An obstetrician told her to “just” stop using. Even her dealer refused to sell to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I needed help.”
The common assumption that her affection for her child would make her stop using only led to deeper self-loathing and negative self-talk, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not simply will her addiction away, any more than she could will away a persistent condition.
The baby was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. When Stephanie finally saw her her, she was attached to medical equipment, so little she thought she would hurt her. Holding her for the first time, she felt empty. “I looked at her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She remained uncertain she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to name her baby after her caregiver, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Hospital staff told her about a care center, a new kind of care center where parents and infants affected by substance use are treated together, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is identified with infant withdrawal condition every 18 minutes, infants are still rushed to special care and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a small, growing network of centers like Maddie’s Place is demonstrating a key fact: when families are kept intact, recovery succeeds, custody cases decrease and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she finally did. After verifying her eligibility for the program, a couple of employees came to bring her to the facility.
She departed the institution still in recovery, fearful and unsure about what would happen next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still worried that child services would come take Izzie – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The concern persisted: that at any point, someone could enter and take her baby away.
For the beginning period, Stephanie remained isolated. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I lacked confidence at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about getting by. Addiction came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had a trusted ally, but even that relationship was delicate. The people she loved always found ways to cause pain. She lacked the ability to value herself, let alone anyone else.
Each day, staff from Maddie’s Place transported her to a recovery program, provided orally. Gradually, she was starting to get clean.
She devoted all her time beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with intolerance to some formulas and obvious stomach troubles. She needed feeding therapy. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an professional – all frequent conditions for babies exposed to substances.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I found the strength. I would become a mother.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where those still using can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a recovery coach, visited with her own family in tow to bring treats. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in admiration of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “They didn’t care that I had used drugs with her. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is wearing black pants and a hoodie, a gray knit hat with a bobble on her head, resting on the floor with the door behind her. She is lean. Her head is tilted forward so you miss her features. She is presenting her daughter on her lap for the children to see and they are gathered around, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the mothers: “Why are there no men?” The women attempted to clarify that the dads were busy, called away to other tasks, that they would be there given the chance.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and Bunch-Smith exchanged glances. “I broke down,” Stephanie said. “If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was able. I would become a mother.”
Methods to address babies with exposure have been used for a long time.
The evaluation method was created in 1975|
