A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Transformed Their Futures.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, the expectant mother visited the hospital emergency room after an infection began spreading up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had built in a companion's property. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. The onset of withdrawal began. She bent over the bedside and vomited.
Stephanie finally broke down. “I have to get out of here. I have to go home and use drugs.”
She had consumed opioids before seeking medical help and had just enough time to get treated before she needed to go home to use once more. She thought she still had several weeks to plan her recovery and have this baby.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the medical facility declined to release her: the leg infection was severe, 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 face grave danger.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl at regular intervals, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. After delivery Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a medication that eases withdrawal and is commonly used in rehabilitation.
A short time later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie delivered a baby girl weighing a small weight – premature, tiny yet healthy.
When the attendant inquired 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 shortly before she gave birth.
She felt ill. Unprepared to be a mother. Undeserving.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt awful each time she failed. She felt without value, criticizing herself for not being able to do the impossible. An doctor told her to “only” 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 stop using only led to greater shame and self-abuse, a trigger for her to use again. 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 tiny she thought she would hurt her. Cradling her initially, she felt detached. “I looked at her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She remained uncertain she wanted to be her mother.
After two days she decided to call her daughter Izzie, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Medical personnel told her about Maddie’s Place, a innovative treatment home where women and their babies are treated together, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is diagnosed with newborn addiction symptoms every 18 minutes, infants are still whisked to NICUs and medicated while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is demonstrating a key fact: when families are kept intact, recovery succeeds, custody cases decrease and overall savings increase.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she ultimately reached out. After verifying her eligibility for the program, a couple of employees came to bring her to the facility.
She stepped out of the hospital still in recovery, scared and uncertain about what would follow.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still worried that authorities would come remove her daughter – even though she was uncertain about motherhood. The anxiety remained: that at any moment, someone could walk in and separate them.
For the first two weeks, Stephanie kept to herself. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about getting by. Drugs came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that connection was tenuous. The people she loved always found ways to let her down. She did not know how to value herself, much less anyone else.
Daily, staff from the facility took her to a clinic for methadone, provided orally. Gradually, she was beginning recovery.
She devoted all her time when not in sessions with Izzie, and could see that her baby was getting the specialized care she needed. Her girl had some trouble feeding at first, with sensitivity to certain foods and obvious stomach troubles. She needed dietary support. She also had sensory challenges and required an specialist – all common issues for babies born with NAS.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I was capable. I could be a mom.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where parents in active addiction can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a peer support specialist, visited with her own children in tow to deliver baked goods. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The kids looked amazed in awe of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “They overlooked my addiction. They focused only on the baby.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is wearing dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a beanie with a pompom on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the exit nearby. She is slender. Her posture is humble so you cannot see her face. She is presenting her daughter on her leg for the other kids to see and they are crowding near, admiring and touching to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the parents: “Where are all the dads?” The moms tried to explain that the men were occupied, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if they could.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I will excel as a father. They will know they are valued.”
Stephanie and her companion exchanged glances. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that these babies deserve to be loved, then I could do this. I would become a mother.”
Tools for treating infants affected by substances have been used for a long time.
The evaluation method was created in 1975|