A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: The Decision to Keep Her Child Saved Them Both.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, a woman named Stephanie arrived at the medical facility after an infection began spreading up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, separated from loved ones, she resided in a small structure she had constructed in a friend’s yard. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she started to feel anxious. The onset of withdrawal began. She bent over the bedside and threw up.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and take a hit.”
She had used fentanyl before seeking medical help and had only a brief window to get treated before she was compelled to leave to relapse. She thought she still had several weeks to find a way to become sober and have this baby.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the infection in her legs was severe, but medical staff detected she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, her nurse, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would not survive.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie measured quantities of fentanyl every few hours, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
Five days later, on the 12th of November, Stephanie gave birth to a daughter weighing just over four pounds – early, small but alive.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “not now.” She was detached. Her anesthesia was ineffective, her last dose of fentanyl had been provided a few hours prior to birth.
She felt sick. 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 OBGYN told her to “simply” stop using. Even her source declined to supply to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The pervasive expectation that her bond with her newborn would make her recover only led to increased guilt and negative self-talk, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could eliminate a persistent condition.
The baby was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was hooked up to monitors, so small she thought she would hurt her. Cradling her initially, she felt nothing. “I gazed upon her and was like, ‘What am I going to do with you?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to give her child the name the same as her nurse, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Medical personnel told her about a specialized facility, a innovative treatment home where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are cared for jointly, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is diagnosed with infant withdrawal condition frequently, infants are still whisked to NICUs and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a developing system of centers like Maddie’s Place is showing an important truth: when parents and infants remain united, outcomes improve, custody cases decrease and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she finally did. After confirming she would be a good fit for the program, a couple of employees came to pick her up.
She stepped out of the hospital still in detox, fearful and unsure about what would follow.
At the care center, Stephanie still was concerned that child services would come seize her child – even though she was uncertain about motherhood. The anxiety remained: that at any moment, someone could arrive and remove her child.
For the first two weeks, Stephanie remained isolated. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Life on the streets, she said, was about getting by. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that bond was fragile. The those close to her always found ways to hurt her. She was unable to value herself, not to mention anyone else.
Daily, staff from Maddie’s Place transported her to a treatment center, administered in pill form. Gradually, she was starting to get clean.
She spent every minute outside treatment 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 pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an occupational therapist – all common issues for babies affected by withdrawal.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I found the strength. I would become a mother.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie was in the common room, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for guided meetings with their babies. Katie Bunch-Smith, a recovery coach, came over with her own children in tow to drop off cookies. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in awe of the tiny infant in Stephanie’s arms. “They had no care in the world,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. None of those things mattered to them.”
She has an image of the moment. She is clad in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a beanie with a decoration on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the door behind her. She is lean. Her face is downcast so you miss her features. She is presenting her daughter on her knee for the children to see and they are crowding near, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the mothers: “Where are all the dads?” The women attempted to clarify that the dads were busy, handling responsibilities, that they would be there if they could.
“When I have kids,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and her companion looked at each other. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that infants need affection, then I was able. I would become a mother.”
Tools for treating drug-exposed newborns have been used for a long time.
The Finnegan NAS scale was established in 1975|