A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Transformed Their Futures.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, the expectant mother visited the ER after her infection worsened up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, cut off from her relatives, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had assembled in a companion's property. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she started to feel anxious. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She leaned over the bed and threw up.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and use drugs.”
She had used fentanyl before coming to the ER and had sufficient opportunity to get treated before she had to return to relapse. She thought she still had a month remaining to figure out how to get clean and deliver her child.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the condition in her limbs was severe, but medical staff detected she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would not survive.
The nurse convinced the doctor to give Stephanie measured quantities of fentanyl periodically, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. After delivery Stephanie would be switched to methadone, a drug that alleviates cravings and is often prescribed in addiction recovery.
Five days later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie had a daughter weighing just over four pounds – born before term, little but surviving.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “not now.” She was detached. Her epidural had failed, her final administration of fentanyl had been provided a few hours prior to birth.
She felt sick. Not ready for motherhood. Unworthy.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt terrible each time she relapsed. She felt worthless, criticizing herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An doctor told her to “just” stop using. Even her source would not provide to her when she became clearly expecting.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The pervasive expectation that her affection for her child would make her quit only led to greater shame and self-harm, a impetus for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a chronic disease.
The infant was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was hooked up to medical equipment, so tiny she thought she would harm her. Cradling her initially, she felt nothing. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What am I going to do with you?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Two days later she decided to give her child the name the same as her nurse, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Nurses and doctors told her about Maddie’s Place, a new kind of care center where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are cared for jointly, not apart.
In many parts of America, where a baby is identified with infant withdrawal condition frequently, infants are still rushed to special care and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a limited but expanding group of centers like this facility is demonstrating a key fact: when parents and infants remain united, recovery succeeds, fewer children enter care and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she finally did. After ensuring she qualified for the program, a couple of employees came to pick her up.
She stepped out of the hospital still in recovery, scared and uncertain about what would happen next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still was concerned that child services would come seize her child – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The concern persisted: that at any moment, someone could walk in and remove her child.
For the beginning period, Stephanie kept to herself. “I avoided interaction,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Life on the streets, she said, was about survival. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that relationship was delicate. The people she loved always found ways to cause pain. She lacked the ability to care for herself, let alone anyone else.
Daily, staff from Maddie’s Place transported her to a treatment center, given as medication. Gradually, she was beginning recovery.
She spent every minute beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was getting the specialized care she needed. Her infant faced feeding challenges at first, with adverse reactions to milk and obvious stomach troubles. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had sensory challenges and required an occupational therapist – all common issues for babies exposed to substances.
If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was capable. I could be a mom.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where parents in active addiction can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a recovery coach, came over with her own children in tow to drop off cookies. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was seated on the ground holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in wonder 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 dressed in casual attire, a cap with a bobble on her head, seated on the ground with the door behind her. She is lean. Her face is downcast so you cannot see her face. She is presenting her daughter on her knee for the other kids to see and they are crowding near, admiring and touching to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the mothers: “Why are there no men?” The parents responded that the dads were busy, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if possible.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and Bunch-Smith looked at each other. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that these babies deserve to be loved, then I found the courage. I would become a mother.”
Tools for treating babies with exposure have been used for a long time.
The assessment tool was developed in 1975|
