Tara is a NICU nurse who experienced the epidemic of newborns withdrawing from their moms’ drugs that they got in the womb. And she also experienced that they weren’t given great treatment. Tara stumbled into a solution that’s better for everyone (babies, parents, taxpayers), and her Hushabye Nursery has helped 695 infants & their families!
Well, I had one person tell me I couldn't do it, and my husband's.
Like, why did you say that?
I invite him.
I invite him every year to our little event.
I'm like, come on over, so you can't do it, so you said.
We're going to It's what's right? I mean, honestly, I don't. I didn't know what. I didn't know. I'm not a business person, so I had no idea how to do any of that. I just knew that care could be better. And if it was my baby, I would have demanded the closet. I would have said that my baby's going in the closet no matter what, and.
That just it's what's right.
This thing is terror changes the world about their own babies and clauses exactly. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner City Memphis. And the last part it somehow led to an oscar for the film about our team.
It's called Undefeated. Y'all.
I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits, using big words that nobody ever uses on Cinn and Fox, but rather an army of normal folks US just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what I can help? That's what Tara Sundum, the voice we just heard is done. Tara is a nick you nurse in the Phoenix area who experienced firsthand the growing epidemic of newborns get this withdrawing from the mom's drugs that they got in the womb, and she also experienced that they weren't being given great treatment that helped them recover. Tara stumbled into a solution that was better for everyone, the babies, the moms, and our tax dollars. I cannot wait for you to meet Tara and her Hushaby nursery. Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, Tarah Sundam, Welcome to Memphis.
Thank you for having me.
How was this kind of rainy? How was the flight in? Oh?
It's perfect?
Really yeah, not bad.
No, going into Arizona it's really rocky, but coming in here was easy.
It's good. Where'd you fly through Dallas?
I guess yes, yeah, Phoenix, Dallas, Memphis, and then I guess, Memphis, Dallas, Phoenix back out exactly. I really appreciate you coming to spend the day with us. Can't wait to talk about I think I think I'm saying it right. It's husher By, Yes, husher By Nursery and all of it. And you know, I found myself as I was learning your background. I have so many questions and I can't wait to get to them. But first, who's Janelle Jones?
She's my PR and developments manager.
When she emailed us, she was not who is Dorene Jones?
Her mom?
Her mom?
Yes, I was like, when I saw Dorene, I'm like, I don't know who that person is. And so yeah, I here very persistent.
Well, a shout out to Dorene and Janelle Jones, apparently consistent listeners and followers of an army of normal folks. The reason we found out about you was Daren, who said, we need to get this care model nationwide. Please consider having husher By Nursery and Phoenix, Arizona on your show. It is truly changing the cycle. Thank you so much. I'm a dedicated listener to your podcast and love everything you stand for. Janelle said, Hi, they're big fan of the podcast, I want to adjust someone for you to talk to on her show on your show. Her name is Tara Sundam and she is founder of one of the one of a kind nursery in Phoenix for newborns who are born exposed to substances. Thanks for your consideration. I believe covering TERA's journey could create a lot of awareness around this growing issue. So we have two fans, but so do you, apparently, and that is how we found out about you. So for all of our listeners, we're not kidding. If you tell us about folks, Alex will find out about them. And Tara's living proof that organically we are starting to and our guests through our listeners.
Which is very cool.
It is really cool.
It is cool.
So before we get to hush about nursery and these wonderful things, is it Janelle or Janello? Janelle and Doreen have said about you?
From? Where do you hail?
Originally grew up in Hartford, South Dakota. It's close to sup Balls.
Hartford, South Dakota. I mean that's like.
Like two thousand people, tiny little town.
Yeah, but South Dakota is cool, right, It's beautiful.
It is beautiful. Yeah, during the summer.
During the summer, during the winter, during the winter. Yeah, you don't have to experience that. I don't guess. Yeah, So what how did you get Phoenix?
My family slowly but shortly started to.
Move and I said, the hell with these winners. Yeah.
Yeah, And I graduated in nursing school and said, yeah, I'm going and nursing school. So once I graduate, graduated, got my nursing degree. Then up there in Mankato, Minnesota.
Another booming metropolis that sounds like cold. Yeah. And so your family basically migrated to Phoenix thirty years ago or so, but half.
Of us, I say, yeah, we're still in.
Such So once you graduated nursing school, you moved to Phoenix, Yes, all right, and siblings any of that stuff.
Oh, I have his herson hours. So there's eight of us total.
Wow, that is a Brady bud. Yes, Yes, that's incredible. Yeh.
And then you moved to Phoenix. I guess you're in your twenties at that point.
Yep, twenty three.
Twenty three, And I guess you start life as a nurse. Yeah, what was your first.
Job in the neonatal intensive carey? In it taking care of babies.
That was your first job, my very very first job. How do you like to prepare you for that?
I thought I wanted to do pediatrics, and I wanted to do I see you like sick kids, and I just got lucky and my kind of a goofy story and you can tell me to not go here.
No, no, we got to establish who you are.
I went down to Arizona not knowing, you know, really what Phoenix was. And I interviewed like at eleven places and went to Tucson, which is like a two hour drive.
I had no idea how far it was. I'm from South Dakota. I'm like, I can drive that far. Not a big deal. And did interviews down there.
Every time I went into an interview, they scheduled an interview, but they would be like, we have no openings, thanks so much, and turn me around.
And my husband and I my.
Boyfriend at the time, and I went to an ASU baseball game and it was chili and I was wearing my man Cato Stay sweatshirt and all of a sudden, this guy comes down and he's like, you wouldn't happen to be Tara Wagner.
That was my maiden name, and I'm like, I was like.
Yeah, and he's like, my wife's up here and you have an interview I think with her tomorrow.
And I was like, oh, so I went.
Up like schmoozed as best I possibly could, and at the end she goes, I mean it sat there the whole game. And at the end she's like, after when you come in for your interview, make sure that they know I want you to. I want to talk with you. I'm like, oh, okay, So going from an interview again, walk in, They're like, thank you so much for coming.
We don't have any openings. We'll keep your name on file.
And I'm like and I turned back around and I'm like, Carol Richie said she wanted to like talk with me, and I got the job. Really that was if I had I not wore my sweatshirt to the baseball game that night before, I don't know where I would have been.
That is crazy and kind of like divine intervention US.
Yeah.
Yeah, so.
You start in the neotensive care unit. So the closest thing I have to that is here in Memphis. We have Saint Jude, which is a worldwide bland now and you know, It's an incredible place where children with cancer and diseases that nobody even can identify. Some of them, Saint Jude takes them and not a single family or child pays one dime for their care, and their care is the best in the world. I don't know how nurses and doctors. It takes an enormously special person in my mind, to do that care, because many of those children they lose because they're they're dealing with cancers and diseases that other people can't even identify. And the care and the compassion and love they show these cancer ridden children from the United States, but from as far away as you know, Malaysia and Nepal and points you've never heard of, and they wrap their arms around the families and these kids and they try to nurse them back to help that they lose a lot. And how you keep a spile on your face every day looking at a child that you know may not make it and is certainly suffering in a lot of pain is always been a conundrum to me, because I don't know that I could pull that off. Maybe I'm too soft, maybe I just don't have that skill set. So as a twenty three year old kid, which is.
What you were then.
Yeah, having just graduated from nursing school going into neo natal intensive care, You're dealing with sick, sick, sick babies, some of which won't make it, some of which which is amazing to me that a human being can be six inches long, that they can Yeah, how did you.
Deal with that at first? Was that? Did you?
Did you have to develop a skill set, a personal skills forget the professional skill set up, the actual care, the medical care I'm talking about, how do you care for yourself in an environment?
Yeah, Well, I'm a believer, so God a lot.
I mean, trying to like fathom why.
Things happen for the most part in the neonatal intensive curey and when a baby passes, they're suffering, and it's it's I look at it as that's where they need to go.
They need to go to Heaven.
That's what they're where they need to go because they're struggling too much with us. Now are there times where you go, how did that happen? Everything was good, baby was great. I had a baby that I took care of. Mom and dad. They were teens. They lived probably three hours away. They would go to school during the week. They would come every Friday night, they would leave every Sunday. But they were there and they were engaged, and they were great, and their baby was born probably four months premature. And got to know them and just loved them and loved on their baby while they weren't there, and it's like, we're doing good. And we thought on Christmas Eve that baby was going home on the twenty sixth of December, and on Christmas night got sick and we called and I'm like, you need to get here now.
And she passed.
And when you have that, I mean, that's a lot of praying and going, Okay, why did this happen?
But for the most part, you go, it's meant to be.
Then you have the kids that come back and visit you, and you're like, oh my goodness. One of my dear friends, she's also a Nenado nurse practitioner, and her grand baby.
Was born like size of a dollar.
Bill, the size of a dollar bill tiny, how premature is the size of.
A dollar He was twenty six weeks, but I honestly think he was like twenty four weeks looking at him.
Twenty four weeks, just say six.
Six months yep.
He was tiny, and I remember her, you know, coming to tell us, you know, come meet him, and I'm like okay, and I'm like, oh god, this is going to be a long time that we're going to care for him. And now he's I think he's seventeen and about six two. He's skinnier than skinny, but smart like honor society and doing great now. The whole time he was he was in the neck. You his mom I works, or his grandma works side by side, and we have to literally tell her to get out. It's like, this is he is not your patient. Don't tell me what you want me to do with him. I know what I'm doing. You just your grandma. And you get those rewards. I got Christmas cards and you're like, look at that.
They're great.
So I think that it outweighs, you know, it teeters there.
Don't you experience the pain of parents who lose a child?
Oh my gosh, yes, you could tell.
I was like, okay, I'm gonna get tearful here.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I mean I'm gating tears.
We have four healthy, beautiful children that we experienced absolutely no trouble with other than adolence. Adolescents through about now. But as infants, yes, we experienced no, you know, and I was stupid and young, and Lisa and I didn't know what we were doing. We had four kids in four years and still don't know how it happened. But we never had had to experience any of that. And I'll look back on it now and I just I just don't even know how as a parent you deal with a child in that situation. And then as a nurse, who invests in the child, and I guess you invest in the parents.
Oh absolutely, the parents even more.
That's who you end up like loving you You fall in love with the baby, but it's the parents that you just really get to know.
That was my mind.
And when the child passes, they have to be just absolutely distraught.
Oh yes, and so you have to explain you are too.
You Yeah. So initially when I became a nurse, my aunt and my stepmom were nurses and they were very like you never really saw them cry.
And I'm a crier.
I mean, I see somebody cry, I don't even know why they're crying.
But here comes I'm gonna cry.
And I remember the first time that I had a baby that was passing and I was trying to not cry and it came out like ugly years. You know.
It got to that.
Point and the family wrote me a letter and said thank you for caring, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna cry whatever I want to cry and it just makes them go. So their little one made a difference to me, like it made a difference to them.
Where in your upbringing did this empathy you have come from? Do you think, because it's very real you can see in your face when you talk about it.
Well, I think all of my brothers and sisters, I think we're all pretty caring.
My dad.
I mean, my dad was a large animal.
That really, but I wouldn't in the Dakota, in.
The Dakota with ranchers, Yeah yeah, But I mean I don't know that he was. I don't think any of my siblings would say that he was soft at all. Maybe later on he was, but he Yeah, I wouldn't have said that. But I think we all, for the most part, art are gentle.
M We'll be right back. So now you're twenty three getting your uh aren't in your stripes?
Yeah?
Really?
Yeah?
And I guess you get married around this time. Huh yep, a year later, got it?
Who's he? Who's this guy?
Met him my senior year of high school. He was going to college and he ended up moving to or going to Mancato. So then I followed him a year later, and he ended up moving out to Phoenix before I did a year earlier, and so followed out.
And it seems like you stalked him a little a little bit.
A little bit, and actually initially very much.
So he had a his his sister was a twenty fifth anniversary cruise gift, so there was twenty five holy a twenty year twenty twenty ish year difference. I guess eighteen is what it was. And he at the very beginning of us dating, he would tell me that he had a babysit, and I thought he really had a babysit. And then I finally laid around his mom's like made a babysit.
I'm like, he really did not want to go up with me, So yeah, I really was the what's his name? Chad?
Hey, Chad, the gigs up, dude, You got caught.
He totally knows.
So you and Chad get buried and start a family your own.
Yes, So you've got I have two boys.
They're twenty two and twenty five.
Colon Carson, got it. And what's Chad do for a living? Just he is.
A I see a place with people's money. He's a certified financial planner.
Got it. Yeah, So here you are, move to Phoenix.
You you've got your career, your husband's doing well, he's got a business, You've got your two kids. I mean, you're doing life, doing good. You're doing good, a really nice life. But and I don't mean but unremarkable nothing. You know, you're not going crazy. And and then as I read this and you're I don't want to put words in your mouth, but take us through it. You start seeing the advent and a greater number over and over again of infants.
In the n C.
I you would and I see you, and I see you Nico, and I see you Niku. That's how people say it, all right, the intensive care unit for babies that are just boring you, You see them.
You start seeing or.
More of what babies coming in and withdrawing and being with us for months at a time, withdrawing being opiate, exposed for the most part, or any other substance. Back back when we started twenty seventeen ish sixteen. It was mostly heroin that you were seeing babies exposed to, and one mom explained to me withdrawals being the worst flu in migraine times one hundred and so when she like dumbed that down for me, I was like, Oh, my gosh, that's exactly what we see with the baby.
You know.
You mean a mom that was an addict said that when she got off her drugs, whatever it was heroin or oxy or heroin, that the withdraws were the worst flu in migraine you could ever imagine, times one hundred.
Yes, how long does that last for a baby?
A few months?
It can? It can with hushby, we've made it well. Yeah, but yeah, my longest baby is four months with drawing in the hospital.
So you're telling me this infant gets brought into the world and from day one they are in.
Immense pain, usually about twenty four hours, and then they start with drawing.
What, oh, it's a while before that's as happened.
Yeah, usually usually about twenty four thirty six hours.
Let's go to the science of I mean, it's a terrible term, but it's a crack baby. It's a it's a it's a baby that's addicted to whatever the mother's addicted to.
So the baby's born dependent on the substance that it was exposed.
So where does this term crack baby come from?
That?
So I've been doing this for thirty two years.
I never in Arizona when I started, I never saw a baby a crack baby. I saw those on the crack or yeah I.
Need, but it's.
It is I guess it is.
I'm crack. Heroin oxy whatever.
Yeah, heroin, any opiate is what you see them withdraw from. Now, with cocaine, babies don't withdraw per se, like we don't see them. If if I have a baby that mom was struggling with cocaine use, you don't see a baby go through withdrawal.
So what is the effect with them?
Uh?
Probably developmental delays later on.
But there's a risk of preterm delivery of a placental abruption, which means the inside the baby, the placentials away from the mom the wall and they could bleed out. Those are the things for cocaine. So if you have those things happen, you sually We're doing a drug screen and going, okay, what were they doing? Before, because that's really that's one of the biggest risks. But with an open be it, they're going to withdraw just like an adult would withdraw.
So let's talk about the science of that real quick.
I am a football coach and a lumberman, so I don't know the first clue what's going on inside our bodies, and I sure don't know what's going on inside a woman's body. But I have a lot of machinery at work, so I seem to correlate everything to machines, and the body is a machine. So let me get this right and correct me where I'm wrong. A woman injests and opiate, all right, and it gets into her system, and then from her system it travels down the umbilical cord and then feeds into the baby's system. So when a pregnant woman is doing oxy or heroin or whatever, fl fentanyl is a big one.
I don't see heroin, okay.
So Finanahl. Ultimately, whatever she's ingesting ends up traveling thembiblical cord into the baby's system, and so the baby is now high or the fetus the.
Baby is exposed.
So if you think of an attic, so I love my diet coke.
I want my diet coke.
I want my diet coke.
You know, it's like three o'clock in the afternoon.
I want my.
Diet coke and my peanut M and M's. And I'm happy.
Can you and I high five?
I love that coca peanut M and M's. It's the worst thing for a fat guy on the face of the planet. And I have to fight it off.
Yeah. And then my wife over July, Lisa.
July fourth, our business shuts down, and so she that's we shut down for maintenance. And Lisa always comes in over July fourth and over Christmas break and she gives the office a you a good cleaning, and she'll put a new lamp on a table and change light bulbs.
And really clean up.
So just this, you know, pastor fourth, we were doing that, and she got two big jars. Here I am, I've lost thirty eight pounds and I'm trying. Yeah, thank you very much before I just die of a massive corner. And he drops some weight. And so she fills up two jars, one of dumb dumbs and starburs and the other of peanut loo. There's seven pounds of peanut m and ms outside the door of my office and I have to walk. You talk about willpower, will power, So I get it. So you've got this diet coke, peanut eminem addiction.
You know, like I I want that, you crave it, you want it? A A person with opiate use disorder aka addiction.
To an opiate opiate use addiction.
Just one, yeah, opiate use disorder. So like if I have diabetes, I have diabetes melitis. That's the Dike nosis. Someone that's addicted to opiates has opiate use disorder, Okay, And.
It's because it is a disease. It's not a the brain changes.
You're you're not giving yourself after you've taken an opiate. Your body doesn't make dopamine. Dopamine is our happy juice. Dopamine is when you know, people say you go for a run and you hit that runners I've never met it, but when people run and they get that runners high, they release dopamine and they're feeling good.
They're like, oh my gosh, I feel great.
Just like that's how that's how I feel when we pick up a first down on a team.
I'm yes, yes, it is.
It's like where like that's it's.
Third and twelve, and I'll call a play that our guys pick up first down. I mean, I feel like elated, yes, and that's.
Your happy juice. And so when someone's taken an opiate for now, it's showing for like three days. If you're just taken for three days, your body can stop making that dopamine forever. It can for enough wherever, but for it can it can it can depress it.
And so some of us have that.
That gene, I guess, I don't know, have that.
Tolerance or tendency that could have a dependence on opiate, which would lead to an addiction. Meaning you're not feeling good, so you're craving it. You know that if I take that, I'm going to feel good immediately. I'll dumb it down even a little bit more. I had had a girlfriend. We're at the gym working out, and she had a ankle injury.
She is a go getter.
After three days of being at home, she's like, I'm coming back to the gym where like, Okay, you're gonna roll around on that one scooter and she goes, yeah, I'm going to because I can't do this anymore. I'm totally not myself. I want to just scream and pull my hair out and whatever.
I'm like, huh.
And she's talking about how she's feeling, and she's like, I'm anxious, I'm sweating. I don't know what I'm doing. Three days for her, three days of percoset that was prescribed, and she goes. I told myself, I'm not taking it anymore because it's not helping, and she was withdrawing, no kidding, Yes, I go go home and just take it like a quarter and see she was immediately better. She called me and she said three days and so like for me when I realized, oh my gosh, something needs to be done. I had a mom that had three babies and I met her on the third baby and the other two were out of home because she had a substance use disorder and had lost them.
And I was like, what happened? After baby number two? She had a C section.
We sent her home with thirty days a perposet. She took him as directed, and at thirty days.
We didn't give her anymore.
She's sick, vomiting diarrhea, can't get up, has no happy juice, nothing, She doesn't feel good. And you're embarrassed. You have a brand new baby. Who are you going to tell you that you have an issue? And this is you know, back then we didn't do much counseling. Now I counsel away. I'm like, if you can get away with ibuprofen or thailant all or alternating, that you please do. You don't need to pick up an opiate to do it. Now, there are times that you need an opiate, but you also need to know the signs and symptoms of withdrawal, what that looks like, and if you are going to withdraw, having those interactions with your provider to go, I really am, I have a tolerance.
We'll be right back.
So the question then is does the science tell us that if expected mother is ingesting opiates, it's the same thing happened to the fetuses dopamine production.
I don't.
I don't know that it does.
The dopamine production for a fetus. The fetus is worn dependent. So they're not like craving it. They're not going give me this this drug to make me feel better. They have no idea.
They're just even an eight month even an eight month no, they just know.
They're with drawing. They don't know that that if I take this, it's going to make me feel better.
Okay, okay, So then the child is birthed, all right, and the stuff is still in their system at far, and then when the stuff finally works its way through the system. That's why you're saying, twenty four hours later, this infant is actually experiencing the same withdrawals that an addicted I don't know all the right nomenclature, but an addicted person would be experiencing if they.
Drop their drugs.
And so this is painful, this head oach, this head oach, and flu like symptoms times one hundred are going on for this one day old.
So what is this child doing?
What?
What are the symptoms for the childhood?
They also bringing vomiting, diarrhea, can't sleep, sweating, jittery shakes, fever, cold, you know, they get hot, then they get cold. They can have seizures.
It's it's horrid to.
Wark breaking, it is, and we still child deserves to be introduced to the world in that shape.
Yeah. Do the parents or the muttered know what she's done to her baby?
Yes, they absolutely know, and they feel horrible.
Mm hmm.
Okay, So pre your world now, yeah, the hospital treats us.
How we put babies in the Neonatal Intensive carr Unit. So think of you have the worst flue in migraine and I am. We're going to go to ACDC together. We're not going to go to a rock concert. Bebe you know, flashing lights really loud. The Neonatal Intensive carry unit bright lights beeby monitors to care for babies.
And you got a migraine, so that beeping and those lights is intensified as what you're saying.
Yep.
And we put them in that environment because that's where we take care of sick babies. And what I found was that gosh, if I bring them into the closet and then make it completely dark, which I did, I could get them calm down. And it was like, oh my gosh, maybe I don't need to give you an open to slowly wean you off.
So is that what That's what I'm saying.
What do they do to treat give them morphine or methadone.
So different places give a baby methadone or morph I guess that's the only pharmaceutical available.
Correct, And we do it every three hours.
So prior to twenty seventeen, every baby that came into our Neonatal INTENSEI Curity unit, if they were born opiate exposed dependent and going through that withdraw process. We just I as a practitioner, I'd write the order. Here's a morphine point oh five milligrams per kilo every three hours, and in forty eight hours, we'll look at you and see if.
We're going to decrease it.
Does the morphine chill the baby out from scrap It kind of numbs them, It.
Makes them go to sleep, Yeah, makes them be quiet.
So methadone is a.
Medication.
Prescribe medication that is also an opiate.
It's used most commonly for people adults for opiate use disorder. So those that are struggling with substance uses that is an opiate, we transition them or and prescribe them methadone for them to be stable.
Is that a lower grade? Is it like a pyramiding down? Is that a lower grade opiate? I mean, how that's going from one opiate to another?
Help? I don't understand.
Methadone is the it's the gold standard of care. But you can you can be stable on methadone and not be under the influence. Oh if that makes sense. So like with diabetes, well.
Then do you get addicted and you have stick on methodone.
Your own and you have you have to touch down? You do, you have to touch down. But if you think of it this way, So think of diabetes. I I have I way overweight. I go into the hospital. I'm in a coma. They check my blood sugar at sky high. I get diagnosed with diabetes.
Then they keep me in the hospital for you know, a week, meet with the dietician, get me on insulin, do everything.
They're like, Okay, this is what we're gonna do.
They're gonna stabilize you, They're going to get you with nutritioness all of these different characiters.
Make sure that you live and you do good.
You may be on your insulin forever from that point on, or you may go home, work out, lose weight, change your diet and slowly you take your insulin away. Someone with obit use disorder, you overdose, You show up in the emergency room. And what we do and still do to this day, is we give them an our cam, we revive them, and we let them go. We don't meet with the social worker, we don't meet with the addictions specialists. We don't get them started on methadone. We just go, you're not a great person. We saved your life.
You're lucky. We saved your life.
Go, we'll see you next week and that's or tomorrow.
That's what it's going to happen. I think we're now getting better at learning to have those conversations that are really difficult, which really they're not that difficult if we didn't have such a stigma against it. But for someone with opi use disorder, the gold standard of care is getting them stable on medication as sister treatment or medications for obi use disorder, which most commonly methadone or suboxine. There's vivatrol. There's different ways to get them transitioned to that. So you get them transitioned on those medications, they can parent successfully, they can work. They can The only thing you cannot do being prescribed methodone is conduct a train and be an airline pilot.
That's it. Everything else you could.
I could be on it right now and you wouldn't have a clue if it's at an appropriate dose.
Now here and there, May I go up, may I go down? I may go up?
I may go down and just depends on what my hormones are doing. You never know if you're under stress. As I want to maybe get off, I need to increase my behavior health services. I need to make sure that I'm really getting to the trauma that maybe got me to where I am right now.
And you see those get off.
I have a pure support that works with me right now, and he's now on week.
Four of being off.
But I met him five years ago and he was on methadone for five years.
How does an infant do that?
Though an infant?
So in Arizona we use morphine. Other places in the country some use methodome methadone, so you have to teeter off even slower. In Arizona we do it, you know, like you wean by ten to twenty percent every couple days. You just kind of see what their doses, what they're gonna need, and you go up and down and up and down.
But what we've found is that if you put them in the right.
Environment, in a quiet, dark environment, like I go on my basement when I don't feel good, I turn out the lights and if I fall asleep, please do not wake me up. When I wake up hopefully I feel better when I have the flu. That's just like a baby when they're going through that withdrawal process. When they wake up, they need someone there immediately, not someone that is taking care of this baby that's a pound that's gonna die if they don't get to them, versus this baby that's just gonna scream and in the nick you this baby that's gonna scream is not gonna die. I will get to them, but I have to deal with the baby that's not breathing.
So I just I have the hardest time even thinking that babies are born into the world with.
This, but they are.
Yeah, well, let me tell you.
So someone that's struggling with with subsidence use if they go cold turkey, so they're struggling with vental use. This happens all the time. Families come in they're like, send me to detex I just take me off. They're at risk for preterm delivery because it's so stressful. It's such a hard process to detax. So it is not a recommended It is not the gold standard of care for a pregnant mom with OPA use disorder to go cold turkey. What the gold standard of care is is to transition her onto methadone. And you can be on methadone and be prescribed methadone for years and have babies that are still going to go through this process. Are the parents awful parents? They're not awful parents. They have a brain disease, a chronic illness. That yeah, that medication their side effects. I have epilepsy, I have a brain disease. There's side effects to my medication that I take care every day that my kids could have had midline defects from my medication. But did anyone say you shouldn't have babies? No? Did I do roulette? I did, and thank goodness, they were okay, kind of the same. Not mine is more. Uh. People go, oh darn, you have epilepsy. But someone with OPI used to sort of we look at them like, you make really bad choices.
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Tera Sundam, and you don't want to miss part two that's now available to listen to as the story of Hush a by Nursery. It's coming together, guys. We can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in part two