A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Transformed Their Futures.
Eight months pregnant and in severe pain, the expectant mother arrived at the hospital emergency room after a serious infection started to spread up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had constructed in a friend’s yard. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she began to panic. Withdrawal was setting in. She slumped forward and threw up.
Stephanie ultimately gave in. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and use drugs.”
She had used fentanyl before seeking medical help and had sufficient opportunity to get treated before she was compelled to leave to use once more. She thought she still had several weeks to plan her recovery and have this baby.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the condition in her limbs was critical, but medical staff detected she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, Izzie, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would face grave danger.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl periodically, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a drug that alleviates cravings and is often prescribed in addiction recovery.
After five days, on 12 November 2022, Stephanie delivered a daughter weighing 4lb 8oz – premature, little but surviving.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “I cannot.” She was detached. Her pain relief did not work, her previous intake of fentanyl had been given a few hours prior to birth.
She felt sick. Ill-equipped for parenting. Not fit.
Stephanie had tried to get clean repeatedly before birth, and felt awful each time she failed. She felt without value, blaming herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An doctor told her to “simply” stop using. Even her supplier declined to supply to her when she became clearly expecting.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The pervasive expectation that her affection for her child would make her quit only led to deeper self-loathing and negative self-talk, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a long-term illness.
The newborn was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was connected to monitors, so small she thought she would hurt her. Embracing her at last, she felt nothing. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She continued to doubt she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to name her baby the same as her nurse, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Nurses and doctors told her about Maddie’s Place, a innovative treatment home where women and their babies are treated together, not apart.
In many parts of America, where a baby is diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) regularly, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and given drugs while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is showing an important truth: when mothers and babies stay together, recovery succeeds, fewer children enter care and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she finally did. After verifying her eligibility for the program, care providers came to pick her up.
She left the medical center still in withdrawal, anxious and doubtful about what would happen next.
At the facility, Stephanie still worried that authorities would come remove her daughter – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The concern persisted: that at any time, someone could enter and take her baby away.
For the initial fortnight, Stephanie remained isolated. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about enduring. Drugs came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a trusted ally, but even that connection was tenuous. The those close to her always found ways to cause pain. She was unable to care for herself, let alone anyone else.
Daily, staff from the center took her to a recovery program, given as medication. Over time, she was embracing sobriety.
She utilized each moment when not in sessions with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with adverse reactions to milk and severe digestive problems. She needed dietary support. She also had increased sensitivity and required an occupational therapist – all typical problems for babies born with NAS.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I found the strength. I could be a mom.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie remained in the shared space, where those still using can come for monitored interactions with their babies. A support specialist, a peer support specialist, stopped by with her own family in tow to deliver baked goods. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was sitting on the floor holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in awe of the tiny infant in Stephanie’s arms. “They had no care in the world,” Stephanie said. “They didn’t care that I had used drugs with her. None of those things mattered to them.”
She keeps a photo of the moment. She is clad in casual attire, a cap with a pompom on her head, resting on the floor with the entryway at her back. She is slender. Her posture is humble so you cannot see her face. She is presenting her daughter on her lap for the children to see and they are crowding near, showing interest to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the parents: “What about the fathers?” The parents responded that the dads were busy, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if possible.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and her companion made eye contact. “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 available for years.
The evaluation method was created in 1975|
