A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: Choosing Motherhood Rescued Both Lives.
Eight months pregnant and in severe pain, the expectant mother arrived at the medical facility after an infection began spreading up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, estranged from her family, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had built in a acquaintance's garden. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she began to panic. The onset of withdrawal began. She bent over the bedside and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and use drugs.”
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 relapse. She thought she still had several weeks to plan her recovery 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 condition in her limbs was serious, but doctors had discovered she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would be at risk of death.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl every few hours, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in addiction recovery.
A short time later, on 12 November 2022, Stephanie delivered a baby girl weighing a small weight – premature, small but alive.
When the attendant inquired if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “I cannot.” She was emotionless. Her epidural had failed, her final administration of fentanyl had been given four hours before delivery.
She felt ill. Unprepared to be a mother. Not fit.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt horrible each time she was unsuccessful. She felt without value, criticizing herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An doctor told her to “simply” stop using. Even her source declined to supply to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The pervasive expectation that her bond with her newborn would make her recover only led to greater shame and negative self-talk, a trigger for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could will away a chronic disease.
The baby was taken to the NICU. When Stephanie at last met her, she was attached to medical equipment, so small she thought she would hurt her. Embracing her at last, she felt nothing. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She continued to doubt she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to call her daughter Izzie, after the attendant who showed compassion to her.
Medical personnel told her about a specialized facility, a new kind of care center where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are cared for jointly, not apart.
In much of the US, where a baby is diagnosed with newborn addiction symptoms regularly, infants are still whisked to NICUs and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is proving a simple point: when parents and infants remain united, results get better, fewer children enter care and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she ultimately reached out. After ensuring she qualified for the program, a couple of employees came to collect her.
She departed the institution still in detox, anxious and doubtful about what would come next.
At the facility, Stephanie still worried that authorities would come take Izzie – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The fear lingered: that at any time, someone could arrive and separate them.
For the beginning period, Stephanie kept to herself. “I avoided interaction,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about enduring. Addiction came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that bond was fragile. The those close to her always found ways to let her down. She was unable to love herself, let alone anyone else.
Every day, staff from the center transported her to a treatment center, administered in pill form. Gradually, 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 pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had increased sensitivity and required an professional – 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.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for monitored interactions with their babies. Katie Bunch-Smith, a mentor, stopped by with her own family in tow to deliver baked goods. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was seated on the ground holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in wonder of the small baby in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “They overlooked my addiction. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is dressed in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a beanie with a decoration on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the door behind her. She is thin. 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, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the mothers: “What about the fathers?” The women attempted to clarify that the dads were busy, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if they could.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and the specialist exchanged glances. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “When a child recognized that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was able. I would become a mother.”
Methods to address infants affected by substances have existed for decades.
The Finnegan NAS scale was established in 1975|
