A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: Choosing Motherhood Transformed Their Futures.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, Stephanie Rosell went to the hospital emergency room after an infection began spreading up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, cut off from her relatives, she lived in a shed she had assembled in a companion's property. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she began to panic. Withdrawal was setting in. She leaned over the bed and became sick.
Stephanie finally broke down. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and take a hit.”
She had used fentanyl before seeking medical help and had sufficient opportunity 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 give birth.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was not allowed to leave.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the infection in her legs was critical, 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 measured quantities of fentanyl periodically, knowing that withdrawal could endanger her and the baby. After delivery Stephanie would be switched to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
After five days, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie delivered a baby girl weighing a small weight – born before term, little but surviving.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “no.” She was detached. Her anesthesia was ineffective, her last dose of fentanyl had been administered four hours before delivery.
She felt unwell. Not ready for motherhood. Undeserving.
Stephanie had tried to get clean repeatedly before birth, and felt horrible each time she relapsed. She felt worthless, blaming herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An doctor told her to “only” stop using. Even her dealer declined to supply to her when she became obviously with child.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I needed help.”
The widespread belief that her love for her baby would make her quit only led to deeper self-loathing and self-harm, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not simply will her addiction away, any more than she could eliminate a long-term illness.
The infant was moved to the NICU. When Stephanie at last met her, she was attached to monitors, so little she thought she would break her. Embracing her at last, she felt nothing. “I gazed upon her and was like, ‘What am I going to do with you?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
After two days she decided to name her baby the same as her nurse, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Hospital staff told her about a specialized facility, a innovative treatment home where women and their babies are cared for jointly, not apart.
In many parts of America, where a baby is identified with newborn addiction symptoms regularly, infants are still rushed to special care and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a small, growing network of centers like the care home is proving a simple point: when mothers and babies stay together, recovery succeeds, custody cases decrease and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she eventually made the call. After verifying her eligibility for the program, care providers came to collect her.
She stepped out of the hospital still in recovery, scared and uncertain about what would happen next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still feared that child services would come remove her daughter – even though she was uncertain about motherhood. The fear lingered: that at any point, someone could walk in and take her baby away.
For the beginning period, Stephanie stayed withdrawn. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about enduring. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had a trusted ally, but even that bond was fragile. The people she loved always found ways to let her down. She did not know how to care for herself, much less anyone else.
Each day, staff from the center drove her to a clinic for methadone, administered in pill form. Gradually, she was beginning recovery.
She devoted all her time beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was obtaining necessary support she needed. Her girl had some trouble feeding at first, with adverse reactions to milk and pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an occupational therapist – all typical problems for babies affected by withdrawal.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I found the strength. I could parent.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where parents in active addiction can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a recovery coach, visited with her own family in tow to deliver baked goods. They all assembled beside Stephanie, who was seated on the ground holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in wonder of the small baby in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “They overlooked my addiction. They focused only on the baby.”
She has an image of the moment. She is clad in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a cap with a pompom on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the door behind her. She is thin. Her posture is humble so you miss her features. She is lifting the baby on her knee for the children to see and they are crowding near, showing interest to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the mothers: “Why are there no men?” The women attempted to clarify that the fathers had obligations, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if possible.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I will excel as a father. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and Bunch-Smith made eye contact. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that infants need affection, then I found the courage. I would become a mother.”
Approaches for managing infants affected by substances have existed for decades.
The Finnegan NAS scale was established in 1975|
