She Was Pregnant and Addicted to Fentanyl: How Keeping Her Baby Saved Them Both.
Pregnant and experiencing intense discomfort, Stephanie Rosell went to the hospital emergency room after an infection began spreading up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a acquaintance's garden. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she grew increasingly fearful. The onset of withdrawal began. She bent over the bedside and vomited.
Stephanie finally broke down. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and take a hit.”
She had consumed opioids before coming to the ER and had just enough time to get treated before she was compelled to leave to get high again. She thought she still had a month remaining to figure out how to get clean and give birth.
The nurse had other ideas. 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 severe, but physicians found she also had an ruptured membrane. The nurse, Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would face grave danger.
The nurse convinced the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl periodically, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in addiction recovery.
Five days later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie gave birth to a infant weighing a small weight – premature, tiny yet healthy.
When the nurse asked if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “not now.” She was numb. Her pain relief did not work, her previous intake of fentanyl had been given shortly before she gave birth.
She felt ill. Not ready for motherhood. Not fit.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety several times during pregnancy, and felt awful each time she was unsuccessful. She felt worthless, blaming herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An doctor told her to “simply” stop using. Even her dealer declined to supply to her when she became clearly expecting.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The widespread belief that her love for her baby would make her stop using only led to deeper self-loathing and self-abuse, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a long-term illness.
The infant was moved to the special care nursery. When Stephanie finally saw her her, she was attached to tubes and leads, so small she thought she would break her. Holding her for the first time, she felt nothing. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She continued to doubt she wanted to be her mother.
Two days later she decided to call her daughter after her caregiver, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Medical personnel 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 diagnosed with infant withdrawal condition every 18 minutes, infants are still rushed to special care and given drugs while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a small, growing network of centers like the care home is demonstrating a key fact: when mothers and babies stay together, results get better, fewer children enter care and long-term costs decline.
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 pick her up.
She stepped out of the hospital still in detox, anxious and doubtful about what would follow.
At the facility, Stephanie still was concerned that CPS would come remove her daughter – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The anxiety remained: that at any moment, someone could enter and take her baby away.
For the initial fortnight, 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 enduring. Addiction came first; trust came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that connection was tenuous. The those close to her always found ways to let her down. She did not know how to love herself, let alone anyone else.
Every day, staff from Maddie’s Place transported her to a treatment center, provided orally. Gradually, she was embracing sobriety.
She spent every minute 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 intolerance to some formulas and obvious stomach troubles. She needed feeding therapy. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an specialist – all typical problems for babies exposed to substances.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I was capable. I could be a mom.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where those still using can come for supervised visits with their babies. A support specialist, a mentor, stopped by with her own family in tow to deliver baked goods. They all crowded near Stephanie, who was sitting on the floor holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in wonder 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 keeps a photo of the moment. She is clad in black pants and a hoodie, a gray knit hat with a bobble on her head, seated on the ground with the exit nearby. She is lean. Her posture is humble so you cannot see her face. She is lifting the baby on her leg for the young ones to see and they are gathered around, admiring and touching to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the mothers: “What about the fathers?” The parents responded that the dads were busy, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if possible.
“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 looked at each other. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that newborns require care, then I found the courage. I would become a mother.”
Approaches for managing drug-exposed newborns have been used for a long time.
The assessment tool was established in 1975|
