Fentanyl Addiction During Pregnancy: How Keeping Her Baby Rescued Both Lives.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, the expectant mother went to the ER after an infection began spreading up her legs. Without a job or home, cut off from her relatives, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had constructed in a companion's property. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she started to feel anxious. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She slumped forward and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and get high.”
She had used fentanyl before arriving at the hospital and had only a brief window to get treated before she was compelled to leave to relapse. She thought she still had four weeks left to plan her recovery and give birth.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the condition in her limbs was critical, but doctors had discovered she also had an ruptured membrane. The nurse, Izzie, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would be at risk of death.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl every few hours, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a drug that alleviates cravings and is commonly used in addiction recovery.
Five days later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie had a infant weighing a small weight – premature, small but alive.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was detached. Her anesthesia was ineffective, her previous intake of fentanyl had been given four hours before delivery.
She felt unwell. Ill-equipped for parenting. Unworthy.
Stephanie had tried to get clean multiple times while expecting, and felt terrible each time she was unsuccessful. She felt worthless, criticizing herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An obstetrician told her to “just” stop using. Even her supplier refused to sell to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I needed help.”
The common assumption that her love for her baby would make her stop using only led to greater shame and self-abuse, a trigger for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a persistent condition.
The baby was taken to the NICU. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was attached to medical equipment, so tiny she thought she would harm 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 after her caregiver, after the professional who provided support to her.
Medical personnel told her about a care center, a new kind of care center where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are supported as a unit, not apart.
In much of the US, where a baby is identified with newborn addiction symptoms frequently, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a developing system of centers like the care home is proving a simple point: when families are kept intact, recovery succeeds, foster placements fall and overall savings increase.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she finally did. After ensuring she qualified for the program, care providers came to collect her.
She departed the institution still in detox, anxious and doubtful about what would come next.
At the care center, Stephanie still worried that CPS would come remove her daughter – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The concern persisted: that at any point, someone could enter and take her baby away.
For the initial fortnight, Stephanie kept to herself. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about survival. Substances came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that bond was fragile. The individuals she cared for always found ways to cause pain. She lacked the ability to love herself, much less anyone else.
Each day, staff from the center drove her to a treatment center, administered in pill form. Over time, she was embracing sobriety.
She utilized each moment beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was receiving appropriate attention she needed. Her infant faced feeding challenges at first, with sensitivity to certain foods and obvious stomach troubles. She needed feeding therapy. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an specialist – all typical problems 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 remained in the shared space, where those still using can come for supervised visits with their babies. Katie Bunch-Smith, a recovery coach, stopped by with her own five kids in tow to deliver baked goods. They all crowded near 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. “My past did not matter to them. They focused only on the baby.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is wearing casual attire, a cap with a bobble on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the door behind her. She is lean. Her head is tilted forward so you miss her features. She is lifting the baby on her leg for the other kids to see and they are gathered around, admiring and touching 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 given the chance.
“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 the specialist looked at each other. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was able. I would become a mother.”
Methods to address infants affected by substances have been available for years.
The evaluation method was developed in 1975|
