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I haven't heard back yet but I put in on a nb baby girl on methadone. Parents are heavy meth users. She is white and part NA which I said I would always avoid but never say never...keeping my fingers crossed I will have to be trained is it hard to deal with methadone? Thank you everyone! Soooooo anxious what if they wait til Monday or tues to tell us? :hissy: I'm ready to :moped:
Our baby spent 5-6 wks in the NICU withdrawing from crack and heroin. He was on morphine and weaned off for 3 days before they released him. Luckily he's a pretty content little guy, unless he's hungry and then he screams that high pitched out of control scream that took me by surprise the first time I heard it. I really thought something was wrong but now at 5 mos I know he just uses it when he's hungry or really, really mad b/c nobody has picked him up yet. The scream really gets me tho, don't remember that my BS ever had a scream like that. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him when he was withdrawing. :0(
Good luck and early congrats.
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Doggymom
Thanks guys..who knows we may not get her...but I hope we do. I love love love babies..she would be a hospital pickup. I have all the clothes and stuff. Tis time I am experienced with babies. Not with methadone but with all the littles I take it is going to happen eventually. I hope this isn't a tribal fight down the road scares me...
Our new addition[baby] that we got yesterday is tribal as well. I've heard that you can have tribal kids for a decade+ b/c severance is hard. Many here won't even take tribal b/c they are harder to adopt and then if you do adopt there's still a chance that someone from their tribe can come back and take them . I was told by a worker that she thinks our little one will be with us long term b/c she is medically fragile, and her particular tribe is so far away. She went on to say that their tribe doesn't have people that like taking medically fragile. It's funny b/c when I saw her 2 days ago in the hospital I had this feeling I'd have her a loong time....like yrs. We'll see....
How old we're your babies on methadone when they came home? This baby is coming off of meth....:hissy: Ty for the info guys it's very educational.. :3d:
Mine was released from the hospital at 4 days old on nothing because she was born in a suburban hospital that wasn't used to seeing this kind of thing and they were ignorant. They use a rating system to rate the withdrawal by the baby's symptoms. The original nursery had rated her quite high and transferred her to the hospital's small NICU. The NICU disagreed with that rating and gave her a much, much lower score. That is why they released her to me on nothing with virtually no info on what she could experience. So the baby was having pretty severe tremors with me almost immediately. Took her to the ped the parents' picked out and he acted like I was making it up. The parents were with too so I couldn't be as direct as I wanted. They wanted me to take her back the next day so I did. It was a Saturday so I saw another ped at the same practice (with the parents again) and she started throwing out absolutely bogus diagnosis for these tremors. I was more frank this time, but she didn't respond to it. It was like I was in the twilight zone. They had it in the file that this baby was born positive for heroin! Thankfully, I had the best investigator CW I could have and she was as frustrated as I was so she ended up being able to get in touch with a child abuse specialist ped who worked at one of the children's hospitals in the city here. He was furious when he heard her symptoms and I was told to immediately bring her in to that hospital's ER. She then had one of her episodes in the ER so they saw exactly what I was talking about. She was admitted for three days and put on methadone. So she was 9 days when she came home again with me, but she did spend 48 hours with me before being readmitted.
Sorry for the novel!
How is the methadone administered ? Please don't say shot...I do my own shots diabetic but the thought of sticking a nb... :( I can but so sad...
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HopingForForever
Mine was released from the hospital at 4 days old on nothing because she was born in a suburban hospital that wasn't used to seeing this kind of thing and they were ignorant. They use a rating system to rate the withdrawal by the baby's symptoms. The original nursery had rated her quite high and transferred her to the hospital's small NICU. The NICU disagreed with that rating and gave her a much, much lower score. That is why they released her to me on nothing with virtually no info on what she could experience. So the baby was having pretty severe tremors with me almost immediately. Took her to the ped the parents' picked out and he acted like I was making it up. The parents were with too so I couldn't be as direct as I wanted. They wanted me to take her back the next day so I did. It was a Saturday so I saw another ped at the same practice (with the parents again) and she started throwing out absolutely bogus diagnosis for these tremors. I was more frank this time, but she didn't respond to it. It was like I was in the twilight zone. They had it in the file that this baby was born positive for heroin! Thankfully, I had the best investigator CW I could have and she was as frustrated as I was so she ended up being able to get in touch with a child abuse specialist ped who worked at one of the children's hospitals in the city here. He was furious when he heard her symptoms and I was told to immediately bring her in to that hospital's ER. She then had one of her episodes in the ER so they saw exactly what I was talking about. She was admitted for three days and put on methadone. So she was 9 days when she came home again with me, but she did spend 48 hours with me before being readmitted.
Sorry for the novel!
Thanks for the input good info! Idk when she is being released...guess it could be on a weekend?
If mom was on methadone during the 3rd trimester , rather than meth or heroin, that is better for the baby and will make the withdrawl easier on both of you.
Find out everything that was in the meconium and if there is methadone there, that is a good thing. Ask if mom was being prescribed methodone while preggers.
I brought my baby home on day 3 from hospital, he was addicted to methadone and miraculously he is on no meds and perfect! He is 15days old today....I took his brother home in feb at 9 days on meds...but he was addicted to crack, heroin, every other drug they test for...now at 11 months he has been med free for 9 months and is perfect :)
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Doggymom
I haven't heard back yet but I put in on a nb baby girl on methadone. Parents are heavy meth users. She is white and part NA which I said I would always avoid but never say never...keeping my fingers crossed I will have to be trained is it hard to deal with methadone? Thank you everyone! Soooooo anxious what if they wait til Monday or tues to tell us? :hissy: I'm ready to :moped:
Was mom using methadone or methamphetamine?
You keep saying the baby will be on methadone (heroin replacement drug), but referring the parents as using "meth," which usually means methamphetmine/crystal meth. The treatment for meth addiction is not methadone; it's a different class of drugs.
Methadone withdrawals are very had on infants, but can be managed with a stepped-down doses over time, supervised by a doctor. These babies are often colicky, need to be handled gently and moved slowly so as not to startle them. They like to be swaddled, tend to have digestive problems, and can have lots of tactile sensory issues. Opioid-addicted infants are also prone to eye problems such as lazy or crossed eyes.
I don't know what the protocol is for medically treating crystal meth withdrawal in infants (or what the symptoms are), but it wouldn't be methadone. Meth babies tend to dislike being touched, may have tremors, and can cry for hours and hours without stopping--the excessive crying and intolerance of touch can lead to lack of bonding, which, of course can lead to long-term attachment issues. Meth babies look a lot like crack/cocaine babies in behaviour and temperament.
Our first placement was a LO from the NICU who came home on methadone and reflux meds. Giving the meds were simple (liquid in a syringe), getting the methadone was not as easy. We ended up having to pick it up from the hospital she was placed from (an hour away) because no local pharmacy carried the liquid version. CW even had me calling drug treatment facilities to see if we could get it from them. Nothing like calling and saying "I need liquid methadone for a baby".... nothing but silence from the other end of the phone!!!
She was on quite a large dose and the plan was to taper it very very slowly. She went home after only a month but I know 6 months later she was still on it. She was born with several drugs in her system and they used morphine several times during her stay (4 weeks, born at 33 weeks) to help with withdrawals.
I cannot agree enough with the pp who stated that it is important to stay on a strict dosing schedule. When we brought her home the times the hospital were using didn't work for us (two in the morning, two in the afternoon). So they told us to simply switch it to what we wanted, no gradual change just cold turkey switch. Was the worst experience of my life. We didn't have any training and should have thought ahead but instead blindly followed their directions.
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Squeaks was on methadone- bm used heroine, methadone (legally I think) and amphetamines.
She was in NICU for 5 weeks, they released her to us after being off of morphine/methadone for 3 days.
Some things we experienced: LOTs of gastrointestinal distress.. colic, frequent loose stool. Rapid-repeated sneezing, general stuffiness. Over-active "sucking"- smacking of lips. Some night-sweats and an occasional tremor- though she never shook constantly.
The worst part was the tummy trouble- you could tell it really hurt her and that would insight the high-pitched cry. She was consolable though- so that was good! It took trying a few different motions when rocking her. She loved her "mama-roo" chair in the NICU. We came really close to buying one- would have if she had ever been truly inconsolable or stayed in that phase of withdrawal for long.
But- we saw improvement every day. I did switch her formula twice and landed on Soy only. I think that she had two things going on- NAS and lactose intolerance.
She is now a happy 3 month old- the only symptoms we still see are the sneezes, but that could also be a new baby getting used to environmental triggers.
Good luck! I understand they all react differently. Swaddling is your friend!
Thanks ladies we may hear Tom or she may have been placed. All of this is good info. I am thinking maybe mom was on multiple things? Idk...