A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Transformed Their Futures.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, Stephanie Rosell went to the medical facility after a serious infection started to spread up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, estranged from her family, she lived in a shed she had assembled in a friend’s yard. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As physicians addressed her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. Symptoms of withdrawal emerged. She leaned over the bed and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “I need to leave. I have to go home and take a hit.”
She had taken the drug before arriving at the hospital and had just enough time to get treated before she was compelled to leave to use once more. She thought she still had a month remaining to find a way to become sober and deliver her child.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the leg infection was critical, but physicians found she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, Izzie, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would be at risk of death.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl at regular intervals, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is often prescribed in substance abuse treatment.
A short time later, on the 12th of November, Stephanie delivered a daughter weighing just over four pounds – born before term, little but surviving.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “I cannot.” She was detached. Her epidural had failed, her last dose of fentanyl had been provided a few hours prior to birth.
She felt sick. Unprepared to be a mother. Undeserving.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety multiple times while expecting, and felt awful each time she relapsed. She felt hopeless, berating herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An OBGYN told her to “just” stop using. Even her source declined to supply to her when she became obviously with child.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The common assumption that her bond with her newborn would make her quit only led to deeper self-loathing and self-abuse, a impetus for her to return to drugs. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could eliminate a long-term illness.
The baby was taken to the special care nursery. When Stephanie eventually visited her, she was connected to medical equipment, so little she thought she would break her. Cradling her initially, she felt detached. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She continued to doubt she wanted to be her mother.
Following a brief period she decided to give her child the name 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 supported as a unit, not apart.
In much of the US, where a baby is identified with newborn addiction symptoms frequently, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and medicated while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a developing system of centers like the care home is showing an important truth: when mothers and babies stay together, 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 confirming she would be a good fit for the program, a couple of employees came to collect her.
She departed the institution still in recovery, anxious and doubtful about what would follow.
At the care center, Stephanie still worried that CPS 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 remove her child.
For the first two weeks, Stephanie remained isolated. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about getting by. Drugs came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a trusted ally, but even that connection was tenuous. 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 facility drove her to a clinic for methadone, given as medication. Slowly, she was starting to get clean.
She utilized each moment when not in sessions with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with sensitivity to certain foods and severe digestive problems. She needed feeding therapy. She also had sensory challenges and required an specialist – all frequent conditions for babies exposed to substances.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I found the strength. I could parent.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for guided meetings with their babies. An advocate, a peer support specialist, came over with her own children in tow to bring treats. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in admiration of the tiny infant in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. None of those things mattered to them.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is clad in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a beanie with a pompom on her head, seated on the ground with the door behind her. She is thin. Her head is tilted forward so you cannot see her face. She is lifting the baby on her knee for the other kids to see and they are crowding near, showing interest to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the moms: “What about the fathers?” The moms tried to explain that the dads were busy, called away to other tasks, that they would be there given the chance.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. 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. “If this little kid could see that infants need affection, then I was able. I could parent.”
Tools for treating drug-exposed newborns have been available for years.
The assessment tool was developed in 1975|
