A Pregnant Woman's Battle with Fentanyl Addiction: How Keeping Her Baby Rescued Both Lives.
In her eighth month of pregnancy and suffering, Stephanie Rosell went to the hospital emergency room after her infection worsened up her legs. Jobless and without shelter, cut off from her relatives, she stayed in a makeshift shelter she had built in a acquaintance's garden. She was also dependent on fentanyl.
As medical staff managed her infection, she began to panic. The onset of withdrawal began. She slumped forward and threw up.
Stephanie ultimately gave in. “I need to leave. I have to go home and get high.”
She had taken the drug before coming to the ER and had only a brief window to get treated before she needed to go home to relapse. She thought she still had four weeks left to figure out how to get clean and give birth.
The attending nurse disagreed. She told Stephanie she was not going anywhere.
“I will go,” Stephanie said.
But the medical facility declined to release her: the condition in her limbs 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 be at risk of death.
She encouraged the doctor to give Stephanie regulated amounts of fentanyl periodically, knowing that symptoms could threaten her and the baby. Post-birth Stephanie would be switched to methadone, a medication that eases withdrawal and is often prescribed in addiction recovery.
A short time later, on a day in November 2022, Stephanie delivered a baby girl weighing just over four pounds – early, tiny yet healthy.
When the caregiver questioned if she wanted to embrace her child, Stephanie said “no.” She was emotionless. Her epidural had failed, her previous intake of fentanyl had been provided four hours before delivery.
She felt sick. Unprepared to be a mother. Unworthy.
Stephanie had tried to get clean several times during pregnancy, and felt awful each time she relapsed. She felt without value, criticizing herself for not being able to achieve the unattainable. An obstetrician told her to “only” stop using. Even her source declined to supply to her when she became obviously with child.
“Yet I was unable,” she said. “I required assistance.”
The widespread belief that her bond with her newborn would make her stop using only led to deeper self-loathing and self-harm, a impetus for her to relapse. Yet she could not just wish her addiction away, any more than she could eliminate a chronic disease.
The baby was taken to the special care nursery. When Stephanie finally saw her her, she was attached to medical equipment, so tiny she thought she would harm her. Embracing her at last, she felt nothing. “I just stared at her and was like, ‘What is our future?’” She still wasn’t sure she wanted to be her mother.
Two days later 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 innovative treatment home where parents and infants affected by substance use are cared for jointly, not apart.
In numerous states, where a baby is found to have neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) frequently, infants are still whisked to NICUs and medicated while their mothers face child-protection investigations. But a small, growing network of centers like Maddie’s Place is demonstrating a key fact: when families are kept intact, results get better, custody cases decrease and long-term costs decline.
It took Stephanie some time to build confidence to call, but she finally did. After verifying her eligibility for the program, two staff members came to collect her.
She departed the institution still in detox, anxious and doubtful about what would follow.
At the facility, Stephanie still feared that authorities would come remove her daughter – even though she was not sure she wanted to keep her. The anxiety remained: that at any moment, someone could enter and take her baby away.
For the initial fortnight, Stephanie remained isolated. “I preferred to be alone,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of trust at that point.”
Survival outdoors, she said, was about enduring. Drugs came first; faith came last.
Stephanie had a single companion, but even that relationship was delicate. The those close to her always found ways to hurt her. She lacked the ability to love herself, much less anyone else.
Every day, staff from the center drove her to a recovery program, administered in pill form. Gradually, she was beginning recovery.
She utilized each moment when not in sessions with Izzie, and could see that her baby was getting the specialized care she needed. Her daughter struggled with eating at first, with intolerance to some formulas and pronounced gastrointestinal issues. She needed feeding therapy. She also had sensory challenges and required an professional – all common issues for babies exposed to substances.
Seeing that even a young person understands the need for care, then I was capable. I would become a mother.
During a pre-holiday visit, Stephanie sat in the visitation area, where individuals struggling with substance use can come for monitored interactions with their babies. An advocate, a mentor, visited with her own five kids in tow to deliver baked goods. They all crowded near Stephanie, who was resting on the carpet holding Izzie.
The children were wide-eyed in admiration of the small baby in Stephanie’s arms. “They had no care in the world,” Stephanie said. “My past did not matter to them. They focused only on the baby.”
She has an image of the moment. She is dressed in black pants and a hoodie, a gray knit hat with a decoration on her head, resting on the floor with the exit nearby. She is thin. Her posture is humble so you do not see her expression. She is holding Izzie up on her lap for the children to see and they are gathered around, fawning and reaching out to the baby.
Jacob, eight, asked the moms: “Where are all the dads?” The women attempted to clarify that the fathers had obligations, handling responsibilities, that they would be there if they could.
“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 exchanged glances. “I just lost it and fell apart,” Stephanie said. “If this little kid could see that newborns require care, then I could do this. I could be a mom.”
Tools for treating babies with exposure have existed for decades.
The Finnegan NAS scale was created in 1975|
