A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Transformed Their Futures.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, Stephanie Rosell arrived at the hospital emergency room after her infection worsened up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, estranged from her family, she resided in a small structure she had built in a acquaintance's garden. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she began to panic. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She leaned over the bed and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and get high.”
She had consumed opioids before seeking medical help and had just enough time to get treated before she needed to go home to get high again. She thought she still had a month remaining to find a way to become sober and have this baby.
The nurse had other ideas. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the medical facility declined to release her: the infection in her legs was serious, 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 be at risk of death.
The nurse convinced the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl at regular intervals, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is commonly used in rehabilitation.
After five days, on the 12th of November, Stephanie delivered a daughter weighing a small weight – premature, tiny yet healthy.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was detached. Her epidural had failed, her final administration of fentanyl had been provided shortly before she gave birth.
She felt unwell. Ill-equipped for parenting. Unworthy.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt awful each time she failed. She felt worthless, berating herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “only” stop using. Even her source would not provide to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I required assistance.”
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 relapse. Yet she could not simply will her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a chronic disease.
The baby was taken to the NICU. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was attached to tubes and leads, so little she thought she would break her. Embracing her at last, she felt detached. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
After two days she decided to give her child the name Izzie, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Medical personnel told her about Maddie’s Place, a unique recovery environment where women and their babies are cared for jointly, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is identified with newborn addiction symptoms regularly, infants are still rushed to special care and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a developing system of centers like the care home is demonstrating a key fact: when parents and infants remain united, results get better, fewer children enter care and overall savings increase.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she ultimately reached out. After ensuring she qualified for the program, care providers came to bring her to the facility.
She left the medical center still in detox, scared and uncertain about what would follow.
At the facility, Stephanie still feared that authorities would come take Izzie – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The anxiety remained: that at any time, someone could walk in and remove her child.
For the first two weeks, Stephanie stayed withdrawn. “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 a single companion, but even that bond was fragile. The people she loved always found ways to hurt her. She was unable to care for herself, not to mention anyone else.
Every day, staff from the facility transported her to a recovery program, provided orally. Over time, she was embracing sobriety.
She utilized each moment outside treatment with Izzie, and could see that her baby was getting the specialized care she needed. Her infant faced feeding challenges at first, with sensitivity to certain foods and severe digestive problems. She needed feeding therapy. She also had increased sensitivity and required an specialist – all frequent conditions for babies born with NAS.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I was capable. 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 monitored interactions with their babies. A support specialist, a mentor, visited with her own family in tow to bring treats. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was seated on the ground 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. “They overlooked my addiction. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She has an image of the moment. She is wearing black pants and a hoodie, a gray knit hat with a pompom on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the entryway at her back. She is thin. Her posture is humble so you cannot see her face. She is lifting the baby on her leg for the young ones to see and they are standing close, showing interest to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the moms: “Where are all the dads?” The moms tried to explain that the fathers had obligations, called away to other tasks, that they would be there given the chance.
“When I have kids,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and her companion made eye contact. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand 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 available for years.
The evaluation method was created in 1975|