[potentialsinglemom]

I need stories (positive and negative) to share with a foster mom who has custody of herion addicted newborn. MOST EVERYONE she encounters feels obligated to tell her the worse case scenerios. At this point, she is having a hard time just living for today and enjoying the baby.

She is becoming very discouraged and all she can thinks about is the long term effects the child may have.

Things I see the baby doing:
--unexpectedly screaming
--crying for long intevals of times
--having muscle spasms
--poor to sucking reflex
I thought this there were typical of a addicted baby, but what did I know.

Anyway, I welcome your words of wisdom.

[momof9wantingmore]

My youngest daughter came to us at three weeks from the hospital, she was born with both heroin and meth in her system. She is now 5 years old and she is smart as a whip and wonderful. Once she got through her withdrawals it has been smooth sailing. She does have some respiratory issues, but that was because her biomom left the hospital when she was dilated to a five to go get high and when she returned our daughter was in distress and aspirated meconium.

[mommytoEli]

we have one child born addicted to drugs. he is now 6. as a baby, he had difficulties, he was more needy and less screamy...as long as you had him in your arms, he was content. we never put him down for long. he slept with my dh on the couch, we laid him on our legs to change him. he wanted to touch us all the time, so we let him. he was sickly, with feeding issues, and breathing issues, had multiple surgeries and procedures, was on meds daily for over 4 years for different issues. he was dx with adhd at age ONE by his neurologist. he is very active. he has trouble paying attention.

but do you know what? he is the light of my life. quite possibly the sweetest child i have ever met. caring and loving and thoughtful. no, he can't pay attention in a regular school setting, and yes, during homeschool he does read while hanging upside down off the back of the couch. but he can read. and he is so smart! he loves life and loves people. is helpful, likes to bake cookies and DO CHORES!

i am SO glad we hung in there with our needy little guy, because it has been nothing but a blessing to watch him grow and thrive. there are long term problems he will always face- mainly adhd, but after where he started from, that is NOTHING.

[blubutterflies03]

The first one "Baby B" was exposed to cociane and herioine. He was preemie. He cried alot, when he ate, he would stick his tongue out some, like someone else said...my husband lived on the couch at nite sleeping with this baby, so that baby and hubby could get sleep. He was normal at meeting his milestones, gained weight and left at 14 months. When we do see him at visits now, he is wired up, bangs his head for attention. I hope everything turns out good for him.

The second one "Baby K" was exposed to cocaine, herione and methodone and preemie too. She went thru withdrawals, had bad diarrhea when she came home and tremmored some. Now she is 9 weeks old. She is gaining weight, is doing great, sleeps much better than Baby B ever did, and is not a cry baby. So far really good with her.

[fredalina]

Baby D was born addicted and/or exposed to several things. Her urine was negative at the hospital, but bmom tested positive for marijuana, cocaine, and "hallucinogens" (which i thought marijuana WAS a hallucinogen, but i think they mean LSD). Later D's blood test came back positive for cocaine, "opiates", and antidepressants. We found out her bio brother was positive for methadone specifically so we assume that the "opiates" were either methadone or heroine, but this blood test was several days later so thankfully she didn't need to be weaned off or we could have had issues!

For about 2 weeks, D had withdrawal symptoms including extreme sensitivity to light and sound (especially light -- we lived in semi-darkness for 2 weeks straight), muscle spasms (her arms and legs would jerk straight, then go limp, then jerk straight, etc, her head would shake no, no, no -- and i know this sounds un-PC but honestly the head shaking was a lot like a Parkinson's patient), crying and screaming incessantly, etc. We found that wearing her in a sling really helped keep her from being too upset; once her crying would progress to screaming, we would be in trouble, so it was best to stop her before it got too bad. We swaddled, used a paci to help with the suck reflex, put her on her side to sleep, kept her close to our skin, etc. i still "wear' her in a wrap or mei tai carrier frequently, and she seems to feel very secure when being worn.

She's only 3.5 months old, but so far she's blowing her developmental milestones away. She had decent head control at a month, GOOD head control by 2 months, could do mini-pushups at 2.5 months, could roll over front to back at 2.5 months, started smiling, laughing, and verbalizing early, etc. At 3.5 months she can tripod sit and belly crawl, and i'll be shocked if she's not sitting independently by 5 months and maybe even skip crawling and go straight to walking by 6-7 months.

Negatives, well she has severe reflux. They thought she had something called tracheomalacia, which is where the trachea collapses as she breathes. But she doesn't, she just has THAT bad of reflux. She is gaining weight but is still at about 5% of the growth chart and not really gaining much there. It's way too young to guess about any long-term issues, but she does seem to be an active baby . We'll see what time tells, but i was told that her birthmother is very proud of the fact that, while she does practically every nasty drug out there, she doesn't drink. Honestly, i fear a baby whose mother drank than a baby whose mother did practically any other drug. i do wish she hadn't done practically EVERY other drug, though.

[parenting-over-40]

Originally Posted by potentialsinglemom

Things I see the baby doing:
--unexpectedly screaming
--crying for long intevals of times
--having muscle spasms
--poor to sucking reflex
I thought this there were typical of a addicted baby, but what did I know.

From what I know (thru personal experience and training) those are pretty normal symptoms of drug addicted babies.

I have had one drug addicted baby. The baby was exposed to heroine, methadone, meth, cocaine, and marijuana. It took 3 weeks for the baby to withdrawal slowly at the hospital. Then once home there were some issues with rigid arms and legs, crying issues, tummy problems etc. That being said. I worked with the baby until ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) could come out to evaluate. Once they arrived at 2 months of age, the baby was already rolling over from stomach to back. Developmentally, the child is ahead of schedule or on target in every area. The only ongoing problem to date has been the tummy issues.

I see that you are also in Texas (as am I). Encourage your friend to check out ECI. They will come to the house to evaluate the child and provide the services the baby needs. I believe she might need a referral from a physician.

On another note, same topic, I was updating my training hours recently. For some reason there were a lot of foster parents with babies born addicted. The trainer explained to us that the rule of thumb for drug addicted babies is 1/3 to 1/3 to 1/3. That means, 1/3 have no long term effects. 1/3 have some long term (i.e. adhd) effects. 1/3 are the special needs children.

My advice - (for what it is worth), I would continue to encourage your friend to take it one day at a time. I know it is very stressful and it is difficult to not to continue to worry about those long-term effects. However, the best thing she can do is love this baby and give him/her what they need right now. Leave the long-term effects concern in God's hands. HE will watch out for the little one.

[mountaineermom]

fs was exposed/addicted to 5 different drugs... crack and nerve medication are being blamed for most of his problems...
He has horrible acid reflux among other things....
But on the bright side is loves being held and is the sweetest little boy.
When he starts sleeping through the night he will be even sweeter!
I would definitely recommend ECI or the birth to three program, they are a big support and help.

[potentialsinglemom]

ECI is involved. A physical therapist and an occupational therapist come to her home. How often they come, I do not know.

She is the cutest baby, and has tons of personality. I hope her fm can eventually relax and stop worrying and stop looking for things wrong.


Thanks to everyone who has contributed.

[RNFosterMom]

Please have your friend research to locate a Pain and Palliative Care team to get involved in the child's care ASAP!!

We have a 4 1/2 month old FC who was born addicted to methadone, having been exposed to heroin up until the 7th month of pregnancy. The Palliative team involved in her care is associated with our local children's hospital. They were very knowledgeable about Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (what the baby is going through withdrawing after birth).

Our FD was kept in a different hospital for 2 months after birth on a methadone taper, but according to the Palliative MD, she was withdrawn too quickly and began to go into physical withdrawal after discharge from the hospital. I was told that if the exposure was very long term in utero (and particularly in the case of methadone), management of withdrawal over 3-4 months is not uncommon.

According to the Palliative MD, the goal of treatment is NO WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS at all. We accomplished this for our little one by giving her a small dose of morphine every 6 hours around the clock and each week, reducing the dose by a tiny amount. It has taken us 3 months, but she will be off morphine later this week. Of course, we have provided her lots of love!! -- but I think that was secondary to the morphine. She had a physical addiction to narcotics and her body needed to acclimate to living without it, simple as that.

The change in this baby after being back on morphine was nothing short of AMAZING! We had on our hands the most sick, miserable, fussy baby, with a horrible diaper rash, poor feeding, gassy, screaming -- it breaks my heart to remember how much she suffered. Within a week, she was eating well, smiling, making eye contact, her bottom was healed, and she was taking long naps (although, regretfully, not at night....). Her weight gain has been great, she's eating well and she is the most loveable, beautiful, sweet girl in the world. The main continuing symptoms we are seeing are muscle stiffness and reflux, but they are manageable. We will also be getting her evaluated by the early intervention specialists in the next month or so.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. I will do my best to answer them or point you in the right direction. Your friend can make a real difference for this child by getting the right folks involved in her care.

[sheababy]

Our DD was born cocaine positive. Our SW told us the best thing for her was to get out of that situation so it's huge that the foster mom is there for this baby. Looking back DD slept alot and had a lot of gas which was pretty easily remedied with Little Tummies.

Today at 28 months, she is smarter than a whip. She has always been way ahead in all her milestones. She can sing several songs, count to 10, knows all her colors and just in general knows how the world works more than I ever thought they could at this age. She is the sweetest, happiest child.

[excited2adoptsoon]

My baby tested positive to meth at birth. She's had zero issues this far...she's 9 months old. She was released to us from the hospital at 4 days old and she is advancing very well in all aspects.

Of course the future is unknown.

[_Liberty_]

Our 5 month old fd was born with cocaine and methodone in her system. mom did drugs consistently throught pregnancy. Our Little Miss was detoxed over 2 months and suffered seizures. She is on meds for that. She doesn't sleep but... she is a happy, happy child as long as she is held and is blowing away the dev. milestones. Doing fantastic. Every week her issues become less and her accomplishments more. With lots of attention and tlc, I know she will do wonderfully. Thanks for this thread, I was looking for encouragement as well.