She Was Pregnant and Addicted to Fentanyl: Choosing Motherhood Saved Them Both.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, Stephanie Rosell visited the ER after her infection worsened up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a acquaintance's garden. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she started to feel anxious. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She leaned over the bed and vomited.
Stephanie ultimately gave in. “I have to get out of here. I have to go home and use drugs.”
She had consumed opioids before arriving at the hospital and had just enough time to get treated before she had to return to use once more. She thought she still had a month remaining to figure out how to get clean and have this baby.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the infection in her legs was serious, but medical staff detected she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she left, she and her baby would not survive.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl periodically, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a medication that eases withdrawal and is frequently utilized in addiction recovery.
A short time later, on the 12th of November, Stephanie gave birth to a daughter weighing just over four pounds – premature, tiny yet healthy.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was numb. Her anesthesia was ineffective, her last dose of fentanyl had been given four hours before delivery.
She felt sick. Unprepared to be a mother. Undeserving.
Stephanie had tried to get clean multiple times while expecting, and felt awful each time she relapsed. She felt hopeless, blaming herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “just” stop using. Even her source refused to sell to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I needed help.”
The widespread belief that her love for her baby would make her quit only led to increased guilt and self-harm, a impetus for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a long-term illness.
The infant was moved to the NICU. When Stephanie at last met her, she was hooked up to medical equipment, so little she thought she would break her. Embracing her at last, she felt empty. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to call her daughter after her caregiver, after the professional who provided support to her.
Nurses and doctors told her about Maddie’s Place, a new kind of care center where parents and infants affected by substance use are treated together, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is identified with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) frequently, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a developing system of centers like Maddie’s Place is showing an important truth: when mothers and babies stay together, recovery succeeds, foster placements fall and overall savings increase.
It took Stephanie a while to gather the courage to call, but she ultimately reached out. After ensuring she qualified for the program, care providers came to bring her to the facility.
She stepped out of the hospital still in withdrawal, fearful and unsure about what would come next.
At the facility, Stephanie still feared that CPS would come seize her child – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The anxiety remained: that at any time, someone could enter and remove her child.
For the beginning period, Stephanie kept to herself. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Life on the streets, she said, was about getting by. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that connection was tenuous. The those close to her always found ways to hurt her. She lacked the ability to value herself, much less anyone else.
Each day, staff from the center transported her to a clinic for methadone, given as medication. Over time, she was starting to get clean.
She utilized each moment outside treatment 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 nutritional guidance. She also had sensory challenges and required an professional – all frequent conditions for babies born with NAS.
If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was capable. I would become a mother.
On a day prior to the holiday, Stephanie remained in the shared space, where parents in active addiction can come for monitored interactions with their babies. An advocate, a mentor, came over with her own family in tow to deliver baked goods. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in awe of the tiny infant in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” 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 dressed in black pants and a hoodie, a beanie with a pompom on her head, resting on the floor with the exit nearby. She is slender. Her head is tilted forward so you cannot see her face. She is holding Izzie up on her knee for the young ones to see and they are standing close, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the parents: “Where are all the dads?” The women attempted to clarify that the dads were busy, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if they could.
“When I have kids,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and the specialist exchanged glances. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that infants need affection, then I was able. I could parent.”
Methods to address drug-exposed newborns have been used for a long time.
The assessment tool was established in 1975|
