A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: The Decision to Keep Her Child 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. Without a job or home, separated from loved ones, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had built in a friend’s yard. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As doctors treated her infection, she began to panic. Withdrawal was setting in. She leaned over the bed and became sick.
Stephanie ultimately gave in. “I need to leave. I have to go home and get high.”
She had taken the drug before seeking medical help and had just enough time to get treated before she had to return to get high again. She thought she still had a month remaining to figure out how to get clean and have this baby.
The nurse had other ideas. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I am leaving,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the infection in her legs was critical, but doctors had discovered she also had an amniotic fluid leak. The nurse, her nurse, warned her: if she walked out, she and her baby would face grave danger.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie measured quantities of fentanyl periodically, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Once the baby was born Stephanie would be switched to methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is often prescribed in rehabilitation.
After five days, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie gave birth to a baby girl weighing a small weight – early, tiny yet healthy.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “I cannot.” She was detached. Her anesthesia was ineffective, her final administration of fentanyl had been provided a few hours prior to birth.
She felt ill. Unprepared to be a mother. Not fit.
Stephanie had attempted sobriety multiple times while expecting, and felt horrible each time she failed. She felt hopeless, blaming herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “simply” stop using. Even her supplier would not provide to her when she became clearly expecting.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The pervasive expectation that her bond with her newborn would make her stop using only led to deeper self-loathing and negative self-talk, a impetus for her to relapse. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could will away a persistent condition.
The infant was moved to the NICU. When Stephanie at last met her, she was connected to tubes and leads, so tiny she thought she would hurt her. Holding her for the first time, she felt detached. “I looked at 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 give her child the name after her caregiver, after the nurse who had been so kind to her.
Hospital staff told her about a specialized facility, a unique recovery environment where women and their babies are treated together, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is diagnosed with infant withdrawal condition regularly, infants are still whisked to NICUs and medicated while their mothers face parental assessments. But a developing system of centers like the care home is proving a simple point: when families are kept intact, recovery succeeds, custody cases decrease and future expenses reduce.
It took Stephanie a period to find strength to call, but she finally did. After verifying her eligibility for the program, a couple of employees came to bring her to the facility.
She departed the institution still in recovery, anxious and doubtful about what would come next.
At the care center, Stephanie still was concerned that authorities would come take Izzie – even though she was hesitant about parenting. The anxiety remained: that at any point, someone could enter and remove her child.
For the beginning period, Stephanie kept to herself. “I didn’t really want anything to do with any of them,” she said. “I lacked confidence at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about survival. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that bond was fragile. The those close to her always found ways to hurt her. She lacked the ability to value herself, let alone anyone else.
Each day, staff from the center took her to a recovery program, administered in pill form. Gradually, she was starting to get clean.
She devoted all her time when not in sessions with Izzie, and could see that her baby was getting the specialized care she needed. Her infant faced feeding challenges at first, with adverse reactions to milk and pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed dietary support. She also had increased sensitivity and required an specialist – all frequent conditions for babies exposed to substances.
When a child recognizes these infants need affection, then I was capable. I could parent.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for monitored interactions with their babies. A support specialist, a peer support specialist, visited with her own five kids 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. “They didn’t care that I had used drugs with her. They focused only on the baby.”
She has an image of the moment. She is clad in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a gray knit hat with a decoration 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 presenting her daughter on her leg for the children to see and they are gathered around, admiring and touching to the baby.
A young boy, eight, asked the parents: “Why are there no men?” The parents responded that the men were occupied, called away to other tasks, that they would be there if possible.
“In the future,” Jacob said, “I plan to be a great parent. I’m gonna show them that they deserve to be loved.”
Stephanie and her companion exchanged glances. “I broke down,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that newborns require care, then I found the courage. I would become a mother.”
Approaches for managing infants affected by substances have been used for a long time.
The evaluation method was developed in 1975|
