Unexpected consequences. Why it is imperative to detox before you get pregnant.

One day, while doing one of my medical school rotations at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, NJ, where, incidentally, I gave birth to my three children, the hospital was abuzz with the news that the amazing Whitney Houston was having her baby on the top floor in the VIP suite.

I must confess that I, being a lowly medical student in 1993, did not get to lay my eyes on the famous singer, but I did feel a common bond with her. We were the same age, and I had a baby in this same hospital less than two years before her.

What I feel now is deep sadness for her and, especially, for her 18-year-old daughter, whom she had while I was just a few floors below her. Whitney’s death is just so senseless, so painfully early. She was a mother who left her child an orphan, and being a mother was so important to her, as it is for most every woman.

We dream of being a mother while still little girls; we play with dolls, we cradle them in our arms, we dress them and we pretend to feed them. We grow up dreaming of one day carrying little ones under our hearts, and nursing them at our breasts.

But what happens if we make mistakes along the way? What if a woman gets addicted to drugs or alcohol while she is young and foolish? Can she still have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby? I get asked these questions very often from concerned women who either want to get pregnant or are already pregnant and want to know the consequences of their mistakes.

We all know that our actions must bear consequences, but our children should not be the ones bearing the brunt of them. So we must be careful how to treat our bodies prior to getting pregnant and, certainly, even more so once we are expecting. Most women start taking prenatal vitamins months before getting pregnant, so how much more important would it be to start taking care of your body by getting off whatever drugs you are on way before you conceive? Did you know that drugs are not only harmful to you, but are readily transferred though the placenta and will harm an unborn fetus, even before your know you may be pregnant? For instance:

Benzodiazepines like Valium, Xanax and Ativan have been shown to lead to lip and palate malformation such as split lip.

Alcohol consumption leads to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Pain pills, heroin, methadone and Suboxone, if not tapered during pregnancy, will leave the baby addicted at birth.

Cocaine use can lead to insufficient blood supply to the baby and death of the fetus in the womb.

If you quit before you are pregnant, none of these will be a concern. You will not have to worry about telling anything to the obstetrician or midwife, and you will not have to worry about what they may suspect. There are things you should know about pregnancy and drug testing. There are no uniform laws throughout the states and most physicians do not know the ins and outs of those laws.

There are laws that obligate a health provider to notify authorities whenever there is a suspicion of neglect or potential of abuse.

You may be able to refuse a drug test for yourself, but if any of the staff has any suspicion, they still have a right to test your newborn.

Your baby’s meconium (first stool) can show your drug use as early as the 20th week of pregnancy, and it will show practically every illicit drug you have put into your body.

If you have not been truthful and cooperative with your healthcare team, many states grant them lots of leeway in what they can do with this newly obtained information. No state wants to separate children from their parents, but if you are not showing them that you are on the side of your own good and your baby’s best interest, they do have the power to do things that you may not want!

So, what is the best course of action?

First, get clean before you get pregnant, or as soon as you think that you are. I know this is hard, but trust me, this is not the first hard thing you will be doing for your child, nor the last.

If you are unable to, or find out too late into pregnancy that you are expecting, get prenatal care as soon as possible. Talk to your obstetrician or midwife, and start off with being honest and totally cooperative. Come up with a plan of action that will get you clean and sober as quickly as possible, so that when the baby is born, both of you are healthy and ready for meaningful bonding.

We want to see our children grow up unencumbered with our problems. To give them the best chance of a healthy life, we must be at our best, ourselves. Some of us, like Whitney Houston, seemingly have it all – beauty, talent and wealth – yet we are unable to give our children what we owe them, which is a healthy, happy, clean and sober version of ourselves. If we can commit to give them that, we have a chance to be there for them when they get married, and to babysit their children and their children’s children, as well. Is it not what we owe them? Not to leave them orphaned at 18 with only a song that says that we will always love them.

Our Recent Patient’s Testimonial

Our Recent Patient’s Testimonial

MDS Drug Detox/ Dr. Julia: In Memory of Amy Winehouse

MDS Drug Detox/ Dr. Julia: In Memory of Amy Winehouse: "Void I cannot stop thinking about the tragic and untimely death of Amy Winehouse. Here was a young, beautiful, immensely t..."

MDS Drug Detox/ Dr. Julia: Rapid Drug Detox Testimonial

MDS Drug Detox/ Dr. Julia: Rapid Drug Detox Testimonial: "Our testimonials are usually short and sweet. 'Thank you for giving my child back', 'thank you for giving my life back to me'... Rarely..."

Rapid Drug Detox Testimonial

Our testimonials are usually short and sweet.  "Thank you for giving my child back", "thank you for giving my life back to me"... Rarely do we get a testimonial that has such incredible clarity of vision and thought, such clear understanding of the process and such good advice to others, that I just felt the compulsion to share it with all. The patient is a health professional, so I need to explain that an LMA stands for a laryngeal mask airway - a device that protects patients respiration during our procedure, otherwise, read on:

I recently underwent the rapid detox procedure about a week ago. I was on Suboxone and heroin. At the time of the procedure, I had withdrawn from heroin to Suboxone to stabilize myself before the procedure. I had been a hard core heroin addict. The Suboxone was a way to hold me over from spending too much money on heroin. When I had money, I used heroin. When I ran out, I had to get back on Suboxone. The process of getting back on Suboxone from heroin in itself is very hard because you do experience withdrawal symptoms for several days, until the Suboxone stabilizes your body. I went through this process of switching from heroin to Suboxone at least 20 times in the past year. I had some vacation time from work and decided to quit heroin cold turkey, but I couldn’t. When I heard about MDS rapid detox, I decided to go through the procedure. I took Suboxone to stop my withdrawal from heroin until the procedure, which was a week’s time. So in essence, I had been taking Suboxone for a week before the procedure because 3 weeks before, I strictly was only taking heroin. My procedure was (day 1) and I planned to be back at work by (day 5). This is a pretty optimistic goal. I almost backed out of it, until I thought to myself, “I’m tired of being a junky and I want to stop”. So with all of that in mind, I went through the procedure. The staff was great. The facility was great. It looks like a regular hospital. The building looks like an office building, not a hospital from the outside, which was cool because it reassures confidentiality in a sense. The doctors are very experienced, and the staff really takes care of you to make sure you will be fine. You get prepped just like a surgical procedure; the anesthesiologist uses an LMA, which is cool because your throat won’t be sore. Before I knew it, the procedure was done. The day of the procedure you feel out of it because of the anesthesia, but the staff helps you with everything. A healthcare provider goes back with you to your hotel to make sure you are ok. The doctor visits you daily, which is nice. You don’t experience chills, sweats, or any of the hardcore withdrawal symptoms that you all know about. They give you medications to help you sleep through the first day. The second day, you feel a little groggy, and I had restless legs for about 4-8 hours, then it went away. The procedure in essence, compacts about 2 weeks of withdrawal symptoms into thirty minutes during the procedure. The best thing to do after the second and third day is to move around as much as you can. You will be fatigued, but you won’t be suffering. The only things that bug you the most is feeling weak, diarrhea (which can be managed through drinking fluids and meds so it’s not so bad), and just a little jittery, which you can take a med for that also to control that. By my fourth and fifth day I started getting my strength and energy back. I was able to work on day 5. You start getting your appetite back by day 4-5 to where you just want to eat a lot, and drink. After a week I have no cravings for any opiates what so ever. The naltrexone implant really works well. After you leave, you have your meds for you to take home with you to help with the minor symptoms. Ask for a good amount of sleep medication from the doctor because that is another symptom which is present for a while. Try to allow about a week of recovery time to go through this procedure because after a week, you feel about 95% normal. After 5 days, you feel 75% normal because your leg and arm strength is a little week. But it gets better every 8 hours. Withdrawal cold turkey from Suboxone takes about 3-4 weeks physically (trust me, I’ve been through it), but after the procedure, you have to develop a plan to stay clean months down the road. I hope this blog helps. I highly recommend MDS Drug Detox to anybody that has any opiate addiction because why suffer for weeks when you only have to go through mild symptoms for about 1 week? Good luck.

In Memory of Amy Winehouse

• Void

                 I cannot stop thinking about the tragic and untimely death of Amy Winehouse. Here was a young, beautiful, immensely talented woman, haunted by the demon of addiction.  This demon does not come from the outside; it is not sent to you by the evil in the world.  It comes from within.  I am not saying that drugs were not brought to Amy by ‘friends’ or dealers.  We have to invite that demon of addiction in; we have to open ourselves to it; invite it as a welcomed guest and allow it to stay.  That is something we do ourselves.  Something in us: be it anxiety, depression, loneliness, yearning for the unattainable something, or lack of meaning in our lives, creates some void in us that the drugs fill and we let them.

               Amy seemingly had everything: loving parents, talent, money, and wonderful music she wrote herself.  Yet she felt a need to fill a void in herself with booze and drugs.  Everyone could see it, and everyone did see it.  Everyone tried to help, her parents were desperate, and she was desperate.  However, they were most likely desperate for different things.

•  Desperation

                As a parent I know what her parents were desperate for, what all parents are always desperate for: their child’s happiness.  Not happiness derived from drugs or alcohol, or popular adulation, but the happiness that comes from inside, from the child’s personal completeness, achievement, fulfillment and accomplishments.

              As a woman, I can only read and imagine what Amy wanted, but she often talked about having a child. I can bet no matter what she showed the world, she craved a family of her own, a healthy child to call her “mama” and love her unconditionally, to nurture that child through a meaningful and wonderful life.  It may sound tacky in this brave new world, but that is what we all want.

• ‘27’ Club

                 Dying at 27 because we have abused our bodies with cigarettes, alcohol and drugs is not what our parents dream for us as they swing us in the bassinet as mere babes.  No one says: “I want to grow up and become a big star and then smoke, drink and use heroin and cocaine until I die at 27.”  Yet they do just that.  Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and now Amy Winehouse, were all dead at 27, among others, not members of “the 27 club”.  How many more will die?

                  Young people die of overdose every day.  We just don’t hear about it. Not everyone is famous. Most just get mourned and cried over by their families, if they are lucky.  Some don’t even get that.  They have spent all their good will and all their love away on other important things in their lives.  The drugs became their mother and their father, the cigs became their sibs, and the bottle became their lover.  And then, there is no one to bury them, because that which they have loved and cherished most has been the instrument of their demise.

• Giving and Taking

               Life is not given to us in order to sink ourselves into the quagmire of fog of drugs and alcohol and smoke of nicotine and hashish.  We are not here to numb ourselves into oblivion. We are here to live, to experience life to the fullest, to love and to give, to teach and to learn.   We feel most fulfilled when we are giving, not taking and when what we give is appreciated and needed.  Think of a mother nursing a baby, a professor lecturing a class, a singer performing to an audience, a physician treating a patient.

              When we are children we are used to taking, not giving.  Part of maturation into adulthood is acquiring the ability and the skills making you capable to give to others.  That giving can consist of the combination of physical, monetary, emotional, intellectual, or spiritual, depending on the relationship between the giver and the recipient.

• Satisfaction

             Amy Winehouse was known to be a very giving person.  She once gave $6,000 for a relative stranger to have a necessary surgery.  She wanted to give; it gave her pleasure and fulfillment.  But monetary giving is only partially satisfactory.  We all know people who seem to have everything, and yet are not ever satisfied. The proverbs say that “rich is that person who is happy with his lot”.  How many of us are?  We have to be fulfilled not only financially, because we all know that money cannot buy happiness, but emotionally, physically and spiritually as well.
 

                If all of these are not satisfied, we are not complete and we turn to something on the outside to satisfy “the itch”.  It may be the $100,000 car when we turn 50 and bold.  It may be plastic surgery or expensive jewelry. It may be meaningless sports that keep us preoccupied while we may let our marriages disintegrate and our children slip away. It may be complete dedication to work at the expense of the family.  Or to some, it can be alcohol and drugs, which will rob us of our freedom of choice and ability to see good from evil.

• Good and Evil

Everything around us can be used for good or for evil.  The kitchen knife you just used to cut up a cucumber can be used to kill a man.  Internet can be used for good, just like it can be used for insidious things.  Sex can be beautiful and meaningful way to share emotions with a person you love, or it can be used to cause brutal violence.  Food can be used for nourishment and sustenance, or lead to gluttony, obesity and disease.

            Drugs should be used to cure disease or alleviate pain and suffering.  That is their intended purpose and when used in such a manner, drugs are good.  Each of us will have to decide for ourselves whether we are doing good or evil.  Most of us know. We are just not ready to look in the mirror and admit it. But before we give up our habits, be it drugs, cigarettes, booze, gambling, etc. we need to know what we are going to fill the void with.

• Purposeful Giving

               You need to fill that void with purposeful giving.  Giving that consists of the combination of emotional, physical and spiritual.  Find a group where you can be helpful: feed the elderly, help the homeless; join a church, a synagogue, and religious group. Volunteer your time at a children’s hospital, fire department, or library. Read to the blind, visit the housebound.  There are always people who are worse off than you are.

                Start taking college courses that you never thought were interesting before.  You might meet new people who are not into drugs or whatever habit you are trying to shake.  Start giving more and taking less and you may just find yourself happier and healthier for it.

• Making a Difference

                Do I think we could have made a difference in Amy Winehouse’s life or in the life of any other drug addict? Yes, I know that we can, but only if they do their part. It must be a concerted effort, a complete commitment on the person’s part which we will nourish and support, but we cannot make or keep that commitment for them.  We can get them clean with our process of rapid detox under anesthesia and we can help them stay clean with the help of naltrexone implant, but recovery is a process that consists of those parts discussed above: physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual.  All have to be tended to, all have to be addressed. Please let us know if we can help, call us, write to us, we are here to help. Don’t let your life fade ”back to black”….

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