A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: Choosing Motherhood Rescued Both Lives.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, a woman named Stephanie arrived at the ER after an infection began spreading up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, separated from loved ones, she resided in a small structure she had built in a acquaintance's garden. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she started to feel anxious. The onset of withdrawal began. She slumped forward and threw up.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I have to get out of here. I have to go home and get high.”
She had consumed opioids before arriving at the hospital and had sufficient opportunity to get treated before she had to return to get high again. She thought she still had several weeks to find a way to become sober and deliver her child.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“Yes, I am,” Stephanie said.
But the medical facility declined to release her: the leg infection was severe, but medical staff detected she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would face grave danger.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl periodically, knowing that withdrawal could endanger her and the baby. After delivery Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a medication that eases withdrawal and is frequently utilized in addiction recovery.
Five days later, on the 12th of November, Stephanie gave birth to a daughter weighing a small weight – premature, tiny yet healthy.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “no.” She was numb. Her epidural had failed, her previous intake of fentanyl had been administered a few hours prior to birth.
She felt ill. Unprepared to be a mother. Unworthy.
Stephanie had sought recovery repeatedly before birth, and felt horrible each time she relapsed. She felt worthless, blaming herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An OBGYN told her to “just” stop using. Even her dealer declined to supply to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The common assumption that her affection for her child would make her recover only led to deeper self-loathing and negative self-talk, a trigger for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not simply will her addiction away, any more than she could will away a persistent condition.
The infant was moved to the special care nursery. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was hooked up to monitors, so small she thought she would hurt her. Embracing her at last, she felt detached. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Two days later she decided to name her baby Izzie, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Hospital staff told her about Maddie’s Place, a innovative treatment home where women and their babies are treated together, not apart.
In much of the US, where a baby is identified with newborn addiction symptoms regularly, infants are still whisked to NICUs and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a developing system of centers like the care home is demonstrating a key fact: when mothers and babies stay together, outcomes improve, custody cases decrease and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she eventually made the call. After ensuring she qualified for the program, care providers came to collect her.
She departed the institution still in withdrawal, scared and uncertain about what would follow.
At the facility, Stephanie still was concerned that child services would come remove her daughter – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The anxiety remained: that at any moment, someone could arrive and take her baby away.
For the beginning period, Stephanie stayed withdrawn. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I lacked confidence at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about survival. Substances came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that connection was tenuous. The people she loved always found ways to hurt her. She was unable to love herself, let alone anyone else.
Each day, staff from the center drove her to a treatment center, provided orally. Gradually, she was embracing sobriety.
She spent every minute 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 feeding therapy. She also had sensory challenges and required an specialist – all typical problems for babies exposed to substances.
If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was capable. I would become a mother.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie remained in the shared space, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for monitored interactions with their babies. A support specialist, a recovery coach, stopped by with her own children in tow to deliver baked goods. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was sitting on the floor holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in awe of the small baby in Stephanie’s arms. “They were innocent,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. They focused only on the baby.”
She has an image of the moment. She is wearing casual attire, a cap with a pompom on her head, seated on the ground with the door behind her. She is slender. Her head is tilted forward so you miss her features. She is presenting her daughter on her knee for the other kids to see and they are standing close, showing interest to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the moms: “Why are there no men?” The women attempted to clarify that the dads were busy, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if possible.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I will excel as a father. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
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 could do this. I would become a mother.”
Approaches for managing drug-exposed newborns have been available for years.
The assessment tool was developed in 1975|
