The ONLY POST I agree with. Well said!
How long did your baby have to stay in the hospital for?!! Thank you!
How did they get off methadone while pregnant? I've been trying and trying to find info on how to get off safely while prego and can't find anyyything! My clinic absolutely won't let me get off and I don't want to loose my baby by just stopping! I'd love some information!
Grandma, you are such a good mother as well as grandma and I pray your daughter knows how fortunate she is to have you and her father there to help. I am a mother who gave birth to twins while I was on methadone. Every story is different as you already know. It will get better and your grandbaby can feel the pain your daughter had for him and is feeding off of that. As long as he can eat, feed him. Better to throw up formula than nothing. It's been 14 yrs so I don't remember about when giving water is recommended. If the pedestrian says now, do it. Also, warm baths and being swaddled helps. My son took his SAT'S at the age of twelve at Duke university. His twin is smart, but she is lazy. Like them, your grandson will be just fine with love and patience. I would also recommend to look for pediatric Dr that understands addiction. For your daughter, when she is ready , she will be able to get off the methadone. I did it. I went from 80mlg to 40 every three to four weeks. Then I went down five mlg. Sometimes I took longer to come down from a dose. Eventually, I did it.. I worked full time as a waitress as well. Melatonin helped me a great deal. I had c to jump off at 10mlg because I ended up losing my take homes and though that never happened before and I was the type of client that was ideal, they wanted me to go to the clinic every day. I said no. I hope I helped you and your daughter. Good luck and may G-d keep blessing you and your family
Ma'am I am so sorry you feel your daughter in law is selfish for not chancing getting off of methadone to please you. I know you love your grandchild and are feeling the pain. Everyone's circumstances are different. How long they were on methadone, how many mlgs, and their overall health all comes into play when detoxing. It's not about money when it comes to pregnant women with the clinic. It is about liability. If a pregnant woman comes in and is unable to pay and had no insurance, legally, they cannot take her off. They have to continue to medicate her until she gives birth. I wanted to detox myself until I spoke to women who one tried to detox and one stayed on 20mlg because she was told on such a low dose, the baby wouldn't get any. Both had their babies; however, because they were going through withdrawal inside the womb, they were unable to develop properly. So, please think about what you are writing or saying to these mothers who already feel rotten. How bad would you have felt if your grandchild, heaven forbid was born with missing limbs, or a whole in her throat because your daughter in law wanted to please you? Or those other mothers who did listen came to you and told you a tragedy situation? Fetuses need to be able to develop freely. Every single day, week, and month, there is development. I had to respond to you because though it's your opinion, you have not given your medical credentials, or proven statistics to back up your claims. This is a field that has been growing since methadone is given to people for all types of reasons that has nothing to do with addiction. For your family's sake, please speak to doctors who are not associated with a clinic,, but does know about this.
It's been 14 years so that's a bit hazy. They stayed for a few days after I went home. I remember they came home a day after I picked up all of their things. I was blessed that neither of them went through any real withdrawal symptoms. My daughter was 4.6 so she had to gain weight before coming home and my son was 5.10 I was informed that I could breast feed once I went down to I believe 20 mlgs. I suffer from migraines and the medication I took was not safe. Then, Columbia Prespartirian hospital in Washington Heights gave infants fenalbarbitan(i am spelling this wrong because I am not near a dictionary) it is the medication used to prevent seizures. My babies seemed to be going through withdrawal for the one day. I had prenatal there and they were aware of everything. No one treated me with disdain. I had them Friday, I went home Monday or Tuesday and they came home Friday. My son had to wait a month before having a circumcision. I had to get the all clear. Now, having said that, they did not make a big deal about certain behaviors infants do like, cry, spit up, etc. As from what I have recently found out, lots of Dr s do and won't release a new born until they are absolutely sure there's no withdrawal symptoms because they do not want to be liable. I hope that answered your question
I pray with all my heart that you get this reply. I'm thinking of starting a blog about this so that women have a place to get educated instead of relying on myths that could harm the fetus more than methadone could ever. Please listen to me. I was in your shoes and thankfully had a counselor who cared about me enough to have other clients share their horror stories so I could make an informed decision. First, never allow anyone who has not walked in your shoes judge you and cause you to feel any worst than you already have. I hope methadone is the only thing you are taking. Psychiatric drugs cause more harm to the fetus than anything else except alcohol. If you attempt to detox yourself while pregnant, losing your baby, in my opinion is not the worst thing that can happen. Your baby v can be born with defects that might be able to be corrected or not. There is no guarantee. Remember, what you eat, the baby eats. Right? The fetus needs nutrients and water to develop properly. If, the fetus is going through withdrawal, that is what it's development is concentrating on. Now, I used to give negative methadone when my toxic screen would come back. One program or clinic wanted to keep making me go up on my dose because of that. The problem with that was, I was not sick. The head of the GYN department wrote a letter stating that as long as I was able to get to the program everyday and I am not feeling sick, I am not to get raised. I will be sick before my fetuses. I had twins. Why my body metabolized the methadone to give me a negative, couldn't really be explained because of all the factors that come to play. Also, negative meant that the numbers came in below a certain number. There was methadone in my urine, just not enough. I hope this helps you. Please get in touch with a GYN that had experience with this and a pediatrician. This way, you will be treated the way you should be. Good luck and do what is best for you.
KUDOS to you! It's nice to read that there is another moon who also had a better experience than most and is willing to share it with those who are afraid and being given misinformation from either ignorance or lack of education.
I know this is a bit late; however, I believe because of your past experience, you know that doing anything other than being as healthy as you can be is the only thing you can do. G-d continues to bless you everyday
I feel sorry for the way you feel. With all due respect, until you walk in someone else's shoes, you cannot judge anyone. Who are you to say that a parent who has changed their life around should not have a child? Is there any guarantee that a parent who is not an addict will not have a child who will become an addict? No. My future sister in law was born to parents who are addicts and she is not an addict. Go figure. Methadone has been around since Hitler. If it was safer for the fetus to detox, then doctors would advocate for that. Just like the professional community has come to understand the effects of alcohol, cigarettes, crack, cocaine, and other drugs including psychiatric pharmaceuticals, they have done the same for methadone. Judging others as harshly as you have is not helping anything. It's those like you who cause women to feel hopeless. Studies have found that feeling hopeless and bad are two main reasons active addicts are unable to get recovery in their lives. Since you feel so strongly about addicts, how about helping them feel good enough to be able to live the lives we were intended to live.
please do not call methadone "meth". it confuses people. meth and methadone are two different things. meth is crystal methamphetamine. and methadone should absolutely not be called meth. call it MMT for methadone maintenance treatment.
What credentials do u have? Sounds like none
Do you really think they don't do any testing to see what drug a person is on come on use your brain a little bit .. Not only do they do a drug test on the spot witch test for all drugs and includes testing that actually tells them what type of opioid a person is using ,they see if it's heroin, Percocet,OxyContin ,ect ..they also do a blood test that tells them how much a person has in there system and if it is to high they will make a person wait a few days to come back to be tested again ..
Yes! It's too hard for the addict to go through withdrawal but it's just fine for their babies to! These women are irresponsible and should have thought about their addiction before bringing a baby into the world to suffer who knows what kind of withdrawals. And yes, they do go through withdrawal. Your lying if you say they don't.
thank you for writing this. My brother just had a baby boy 4 days ago and the mom was on methadone the whole pregnanacy. I know some about methadone, but not alot when it comes to the baby. I guess he was doing ok, but not he is having withdrawls. Hes only 4lbs12oz...so iam very worried about him. The drs are now giving him small doses of methadone tp help. Iam just very worried about him because hes so small...?