A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Rescued Both Lives.
Eight months pregnant and in severe pain, Stephanie Rosell went to the medical facility after a serious infection started to spread up her legs. Unemployed and homeless, cut off from her relatives, she resided in a small structure she had assembled in a companion's property. She was also hooked on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she started to feel anxious. 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 get high.”
She had taken the drug before coming to the ER and had sufficient opportunity to get treated before she had to return to relapse. She thought she still had several weeks to find a way to become sober and give birth.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the doctors would not let her go: the leg infection was serious, but medical staff detected she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would be at risk of death.
The nurse convinced the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl every few hours, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a medication that eases withdrawal and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
After five days, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie had a infant weighing a small weight – premature, tiny yet healthy.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “I cannot.” She was emotionless. Her pain relief did not work, her previous intake of fentanyl had been given a few hours prior to birth.
She felt sick. Not ready for motherhood. Unworthy.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety repeatedly before birth, and felt terrible each time she relapsed. She felt hopeless, blaming herself for not being able to overcome the challenge. An OBGYN told her to “only” stop using. Even her supplier refused to sell to her when she became obviously with child.
“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The widespread belief that her love for her baby would make her quit only led to greater shame and negative self-talk, a cause for her to relapse. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a persistent condition.
The baby was taken to the special care nursery. When Stephanie finally saw her her, she was attached to monitors, so small she thought she would break her. Cradling her initially, she felt detached. “I gazed upon her and was like, ‘How will I care for you?’” She remained uncertain she wanted to be her mother.
Two days later she decided to name her baby after her caregiver, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Hospital staff told her about a specialized facility, a new kind of care center where mothers and their drug-exposed newborns are treated together, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) regularly, infants are still whisked to NICUs and given drugs while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is showing an important truth: when mothers and babies stay together, results get better, foster placements fall and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she eventually made the call. After ensuring she qualified for the program, care providers came to bring her to the facility.
She stepped out of the hospital still in detox, scared and uncertain about what would happen next.
At Maddie’s Place, Stephanie still worried that authorities would come seize her child – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The anxiety remained: that at any time, someone could enter and separate them.
For the beginning period, Stephanie remained isolated. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I was suspicious at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about enduring. Substances came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a trusted ally, but even that bond was fragile. The people she loved always found ways to hurt her. She lacked the ability to love herself, not to mention anyone else.
Every day, staff from Maddie’s Place transported her to a recovery program, administered in pill form. Over time, she was starting to get clean.
She devoted all her time beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was receiving appropriate attention she needed. Her girl had some trouble feeding at first, with adverse reactions to milk and obvious stomach troubles. She needed feeding therapy. She also had sensory challenges and required an occupational therapist – all frequent conditions for babies born with NAS.
If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I was capable. I could be a mom.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for supervised visits with their babies. An advocate, a recovery coach, visited with her own children in tow to drop off cookies. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in wonder of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They showed no judgment,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. They focused only on the baby.”
She has an image of the moment. She is wearing casual attire, a gray knit hat with a pompom on her head, seated on the ground with the entryway at her back. She is thin. Her posture is humble so you cannot see her face. She is lifting the baby on her leg for the children to see and they are standing close, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the moms: “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.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I will excel as a father. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and Bunch-Smith exchanged glances. “I broke down,” Stephanie said. “If this little kid could see that infants need affection, then I could do this. I could parent.”
Approaches for managing infants affected by substances have existed for decades.
The assessment tool was created in 1975|
