A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: The Decision to Keep Her Child Saved Them Both.
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, estranged from her family, 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. Withdrawal was setting in. She slumped forward and became sick.
Stephanie eventually collapsed. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and take a hit.”
She had consumed opioids before arriving at the hospital and had only a brief window 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 nurse had other ideas. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the infection in her legs was critical, but medical staff detected she also had an ruptured membrane. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she departed, she and her baby would not survive.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl periodically, knowing that withdrawal could endanger her and the baby. After delivery Stephanie would be transitioned to methadone, a medication that eases withdrawal and is frequently utilized in addiction recovery.
A short time later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie delivered a infant weighing 4lb 8oz – early, tiny yet healthy.
When the nurse asked if she wanted to hold her baby, Stephanie said “no.” She was numb. Her epidural had failed, her last dose of fentanyl had been provided shortly before she gave birth.
She felt ill. Unprepared to be a mother. Unworthy.
Stephanie had sought recovery multiple times while expecting, and felt horrible each time she failed. She felt hopeless, criticizing herself for not being able to do the impossible. An obstetrician told her to “simply” stop using. Even her source would not provide to her when she became clearly expecting.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I had to seek support.”
The common assumption that her love for her baby would make her stop using only led to greater shame and self-abuse, a trigger for her to relapse. Yet she could not easily command her addiction away, any more than she could will away a long-term illness.
The newborn was transferred to the special care nursery. When Stephanie at last met her, she was attached to tubes and leads, 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.
Following a brief period she decided to give her child the name the same as her nurse, after the professional who provided support to her.
Hospital staff told her about a care center, a unique recovery environment where women and their babies are supported as a unit, not apart.
In many parts of America, where a baby is found to have neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) every 18 minutes, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and given drugs while their mothers face parental assessments. But a limited but expanding group of centers like the care home is proving a simple point: when families are kept intact, recovery succeeds, foster placements fall and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she finally did. After ensuring she qualified for the program, a couple of employees came to pick her up.
She departed the institution still in withdrawal, scared and uncertain about what would happen next.
At the facility, Stephanie still was concerned that CPS would come take Izzie – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The fear lingered: that at any time, someone could walk in and remove her child.
For the initial fortnight, Stephanie remained isolated. “I avoided interaction,” she said. “I lacked confidence at that point.”
Homelessness, she said, was about survival. Addiction came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had one close friend, but even that bond was fragile. The those close to her always found ways to let her down. She did not know how to value herself, much less anyone else.
Every day, staff from Maddie’s Place transported her to a treatment center, provided orally. Slowly, she was beginning recovery.
She devoted all her time beyond therapy with Izzie, and could see that her baby was receiving appropriate attention she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with adverse reactions to milk and obvious stomach troubles. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had heightened sensory issues and required an professional – all typical problems for babies born with NAS.
If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I could do this. I would become a mother.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie remained in the shared space, where those still using can come for guided meetings with their babies. An advocate, a mentor, stopped by with her own five kids in tow to drop off cookies. They all crowded near Stephanie, who was sitting on the floor holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in admiration of the little newborn in Stephanie’s arms. “They were innocent,” Stephanie said. “They didn’t care that I had used drugs with her. They focused only on the baby.”
She keeps a photo of the moment. She is wearing black pants and a hoodie, a cap with a decoration on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the entryway at her back. She is lean. Her head is tilted forward so you miss her features. She is presenting her daughter on her knee for the young ones to see and they are standing close, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the mothers: “What about the fathers?” The moms tried to explain that the fathers had obligations, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if possible.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I will excel as a father. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and her companion looked at each other. “I became emotional,” Stephanie said. “If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I could do this. I could be a mom.”
Methods to address babies with exposure have been available for years.
The Finnegan NAS scale was created in 1975|
