A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Transformed Their Futures.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, Stephanie Rosell went to the ER after her infection worsened up her legs. Without a job or home, separated from loved ones, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a acquaintance's garden. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She bent over the bedside 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 use once more. She thought she still had several weeks to figure out how to get clean and give birth.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“Yes, I am,” Stephanie said.
But the medical facility declined to release her: the leg infection was serious, but medical staff detected she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, Izzie, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would not survive.
The nurse convinced the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl every few hours, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be switched to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
A short time later, on the 12th of November, Stephanie delivered a infant weighing just over four pounds – early, little but surviving.
When the nurse asked if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “no.” She was emotionless. Her pain relief did not work, her final administration of fentanyl had been administered shortly before she gave birth.
She felt sick. Not ready for motherhood. Not fit.
Stephanie had tried to get clean repeatedly before birth, and felt horrible each time she was unsuccessful. She felt worthless, blaming herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An OBGYN told her to “just” stop using. Even her supplier declined to supply to her when she became obviously with child.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I needed help.”
The common assumption that her love for her baby would make her quit only led to greater shame and negative self-talk, 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 infant was moved to the neonatal intensive care unit. When Stephanie at last met her, she was attached to monitors, so little she thought she would harm her. Cradling her initially, she felt empty. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
After two days she decided to give her child the name the same as her nurse, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Nurses and doctors told her about a care center, a innovative treatment home where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are cared for jointly, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) regularly, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a developing system of centers like this facility is showing an important truth: when mothers and babies stay together, results get better, fewer children enter care and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie a while to gather the courage to call, but she eventually made the call. After ensuring she qualified for the program, a couple of employees came to bring her to the facility.
She departed the institution still in recovery, anxious and doubtful about what would happen next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still feared that CPS would come remove her daughter – even though she was uncertain about motherhood. The concern persisted: that at any time, someone could walk in and remove her child.
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. Substances came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that relationship was delicate. The people she loved always found ways to let her down. She was unable to care for herself, not to mention anyone else.
Every day, staff from the center took her to a recovery program, administered in pill form. Slowly, she was beginning recovery.
She utilized each moment when not in sessions 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 pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had increased sensitivity and required an specialist – all common issues for babies affected by withdrawal.
When a child recognizes these infants need affection, then I found the strength. I would become a mother.
On a day prior to the holiday, Stephanie was in the common room, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for guided meetings with their babies. A support specialist, a mentor, stopped by with her own five kids in tow to bring treats. 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 didn’t care that I had used drugs with her. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She keeps a photo of the moment. She is dressed in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a gray knit hat with a decoration on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the door behind her. She is lean. Her face is downcast so you miss her features. She is lifting the baby on her lap for the other kids to see and they are gathered around, showing interest to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the parents: “Where are all the dads?” The moms tried to explain that the men were occupied, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if they could.
“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 exchanged glances. “I broke down,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that newborns require care, then I was able. I could be a mom.”
Tools for treating drug-exposed newborns have been available for years.
The Finnegan NAS scale was developed in 1975|