A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: Choosing Motherhood Saved Them Both.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, Stephanie Rosell arrived at the ER after an infection began spreading up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, separated from loved ones, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had built in a companion's property. She was also addicted to fentanyl.
As physicians addressed her infection, she started to feel anxious. The onset of withdrawal began. She leaned over the bed and became sick.
Stephanie finally broke down. “Listen, I gotta go. I have to go home and use drugs.”
She had used fentanyl before arriving at the hospital and had just enough time to get treated before she needed to go home to relapse. She thought she still had several weeks to figure out how to get clean and give birth.
The medical professional intervened. She told Stephanie she was staying put.
“Yes, I am,” Stephanie said.
But the hospital refused to discharge her: the condition in her limbs was severe, but doctors had discovered she also had an leakage of amniotic fluid. The nurse, a caregiver named Izzie, warned her: if she left, she and her baby would face grave danger.
Izzie persuaded the doctor to give Stephanie controlled doses of fentanyl periodically, knowing that abstinence might harm her and the baby. After delivery Stephanie would be placed on methadone, a treatment that reduces symptoms and is frequently utilized in rehabilitation.
Five days later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie gave birth to a baby girl weighing a small weight – premature, small but alive.
When the nurse asked if she wanted to hold her baby, 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. Unworthy.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt terrible each time she relapsed. She felt without value, berating herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “only” stop using. Even her supplier declined to supply to her when she became visibly pregnant.
“However, I failed,” she said. “I needed help.”
The widespread belief that her bond with her newborn would make her stop using only led to deeper self-loathing and self-abuse, a trigger for her to use again. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could overcome a chronic disease.
The infant was moved to the NICU. When Stephanie at last met her, she was connected to medical equipment, so small she thought she would hurt her. Embracing her at last, she felt nothing. “I looked at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She remained uncertain she wanted to be her mother.
After two days she decided to call her daughter after her caregiver, 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 supported as a unit, not apart.
In much of the US, where a baby is diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) frequently, infants are still quickly moved to hospitals and treated with pharmaceuticals while their mothers face custody evaluations. But a limited but expanding group of centers like Maddie’s Place is demonstrating a key fact: when families are kept intact, outcomes improve, foster placements fall and overall savings increase.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she ultimately reached out. After confirming she would be a good fit for the program, care providers came to pick her up.
She stepped out of the hospital still in recovery, fearful and unsure about what would happen next.
At the care center, Stephanie still worried that CPS would come take Izzie – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The fear lingered: that at any moment, someone could walk in 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 didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Life on the streets, she said, was about survival. Addiction came first; reliance came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that connection was tenuous. The those close to her always found ways to cause pain. She lacked the ability to love herself, much less anyone else.
Each day, staff from Maddie’s Place drove her to a recovery program, provided orally. Gradually, she was beginning recovery.
She devoted all her time outside treatment with Izzie, and could see that her baby was receiving appropriate attention she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with intolerance to some formulas and severe digestive problems. She needed nutritional guidance. She also had increased sensitivity and required an professional – all common issues for babies exposed to substances.
If this little kid could see that these babies deserve to be loved, then I could do this. I would become a mother.
One afternoon before Thanksgiving, Stephanie was in the common room, where parents in active addiction can come for guided meetings with their babies. A support specialist, a mentor, came over with her own family in tow to deliver baked goods. They all gathered around Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The young ones stared in awe of the tiny infant in Stephanie’s arms. “They were innocent,” Stephanie said. “They didn’t care that I had used drugs with her. Such issues were irrelevant.”
She holds a picture of the moment. She is dressed in dark trousers and a sweatshirt, a beanie with a bobble on her head, sitting on the wooden floor with the entryway at her back. She is slender. Her posture is humble so you cannot see her face. She is holding Izzie up on her knee for the other kids to see and they are crowding near, showing interest to the baby.
One child, eight, asked the parents: “What about the fathers?” The women attempted to clarify that the fathers had obligations, engaged elsewhere, that they would be there if they could.
“Once I become a parent,” Jacob said, “I’m going to be the best dad ever. I will teach them about love.”
Stephanie and her companion exchanged glances. “I broke down,” Stephanie said. “Seeing that even youth understand that these babies deserve to be loved, then I found the courage. I could parent.”
Approaches for managing infants affected by substances have existed for decades.
The evaluation method was created in 1975|
