A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Rescued Both Lives.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, the expectant mother arrived at the medical facility after an infection began spreading up her legs. Without a job or home, separated from loved ones, she lived in a shed she had assembled in a friend’s yard. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She slumped forward and vomited.
Stephanie finally broke down. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and get high.”
She had consumed opioids before arriving at the hospital and had only a brief window to get treated before she needed to go home to get high again. She thought she still had four weeks left to find a way to become sober and have this baby.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the leg infection was serious, but physicians found 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.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl at regular intervals, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a drug that alleviates cravings and is often prescribed in substance abuse treatment.
A short time later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie gave birth to a infant weighing a small weight – born before term, tiny yet healthy.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was detached. Her epidural had failed, her previous intake of fentanyl had been administered a few hours prior to birth.
She felt unwell. Unprepared to be a mother. Not fit.
Stephanie had tried to get clean repeatedly before birth, and felt horrible each time she relapsed. She felt hopeless, criticizing herself for not being able to do the impossible. An OBGYN told her to “just” stop using. Even her dealer 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 love for her baby would make her stop using only led to increased guilt and self-abuse, a trigger for her to relapse. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could will away a long-term illness.
The baby was taken to the special care nursery. When Stephanie finally saw her her, she was hooked up to medical equipment, so little she thought she would hurt her. Holding her for the first time, she felt nothing. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She remained uncertain she wanted to be her mother.
Two days later she decided to name her baby the same as her nurse, after the professional who provided support to her.
Hospital staff told her about Maddie’s Place, a innovative treatment home where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are supported as a unit, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is found to have newborn addiction symptoms every 18 minutes, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a small, growing network of centers like the care home is showing an important truth: when parents and infants remain united, recovery succeeds, custody cases decrease and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she finally did. After verifying her eligibility for the program, a couple of employees came to bring her to the facility.
She departed the institution still in withdrawal, scared and uncertain about what would happen next.
At the facility, Stephanie still was concerned that child services would come take Izzie – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The anxiety remained: that at any point, someone could enter and take her baby away.
For the first two weeks, Stephanie kept to herself. “I avoided interaction,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about survival. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that bond was fragile. The individuals she cared for always found ways to let her down. She lacked the ability to value herself, not to mention anyone else.
Every day, staff from the center transported her to a recovery program, provided orally. Over time, she was starting to get clean.
She utilized each moment beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was receiving appropriate attention she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with intolerance to some formulas 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.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I could do this. I could parent.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where those still using can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a peer support specialist, stopped by with her own children in tow to deliver baked goods. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in wonder of the small baby in Stephanie’s arms. “They had no care in the world,” Stephanie said. “They overlooked my addiction. None of those things mattered to them.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is wearing dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a cap with a bobble on her head, resting on the floor with the door behind her. She is thin. Her head is tilted forward so you miss her features. She is holding Izzie up on her lap for the other kids to see and they are crowding near, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the mothers: “Where are all the dads?” The women attempted to clarify that the men were occupied, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if they could.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. They will know they are valued.”
Stephanie and Bunch-Smith exchanged glances. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that these babies deserve to be loved, then I found the courage. I could be a mom.”
Approaches for managing babies with exposure have been available for years.
The evaluation method was developed in 1975|
