All tapped out. . .NAS

[TiffyRN, BSN, PhD]

Spent the last weekend holding, rocking, singing, swaddling, feeding, bouncing, holding, swinging, walking, singing. . .

You guys get the idea, a 5 week old that is getting nowhere with his methadone weaning. Beautiful chubby guy that really resembles that Gerber baby, until the demons try to crawl out from inside of him (my description of narcotic withdrawal symptoms in infants).

All this and I can be still be polite to mom on the phone. She manages to drive 30 minutes everyday to the methadone clinic, but can only make it in for an hour every 2-3 days to hold her very sweet but tortured child.

All emotional energy is spent.

[DixieRedHead, ASN, RN]

I can never understand why people like this feel an apparently overcoming urge to breed.

[prmenrs, RN]

I could say all sorts of things about the situation, but what I think you need right now is a little holding, rocking, and cuddling of your own. I hope it's w/in your resources to get some. A tear-jerker movie might help, too. (it's ok to cry) :hug: :heartbeat

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

Makes you want to hit the morphine bottle with him doesn't it ? I feel so awful for those kids. And then at the end of the day...all you want to do is scream yourself. I hear you on the never coming to visit thing. Hang in there, get some TLC for yourself!!

[dixRN]

How fortunate he is to have your patience & attention. Not everyone can handle those little screaming, jittery withdrawal babies. It is hard to maintain a professional demeanor with the Mom and bite your tongue. I wholeheartedly agree with the others that you need some good de-stressing of your own.

[karnicurnc, MSN, APRN, CNS]

It can take months for these babies to wean off of methadone. We are lucky in that we have an outpt clinic that manages these babies and adjusts their dosage based on the NAS scores performed by educated parents. They leave our NICU once the scores are low and stable.

[Backtoyou2011]

It's very draining to keep you patience and manage to hold your tongue. It baffles me sometimes how easily some people have children and what they put them through. It isn't fair for the babes at all.