Odyssey House a Haven for Addicted Mothers, Babies

When Jean’s son came into the world, she wasn’t even aware of it.

“I didn’t even know I was in labor,” she recounts, seated in a windowless room at Odyssey House. “I’d been smoking crack all day and night. I couldn’t even dilate. The baby was in distress. My blood pressure went sky high. I was in labor for two days, but I really didn’t feel it.”

Jean, 35, a pretty, heavy-set woman from Long Island, used crack daily for three years, including throughout her pregnancy.

Her son’s ordeal continued after his birth.

“I neglected him,” she said. “Drug dealers were always over at the house. They beat him. Once, they hung him up on a nail on the wall.”

He developed eczema, a skin disorder believed to be a side effect of cocaine exposure in the womb, and his hair fell out.

“I went through hell the first few months of his life,” Jean said. “He’d tear at his arms and I’d find blood in his bed. I knew it was because of the drugs.”

Jean is a participant in Odyssey House’s residential program for mothers and their children, born drug-exposed. For 90% of the children, the drug was crack, program director Cheryl Nazario says.

After the 14-month program, it is hoped both mothers and children can return to the outside world and continue a drug-free life. Odyssey House is one of a growing number of treatment centers around the country that work with both parent and child to ensure that such kids have a chance at a normal life.

Since entering the program, Jean reports a marked difference in her son, a lively boy who plays at one end of the room while his mother talks.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “Him and I have a real relationship. When I first came in here, we didn’t have that rapport. But now he feels attached to me. Now he has trust in me.”

At first, Jean said, he was a “real fighter, really violent.” He still has trouble with impulse control. But now, she said, “he’s manageable, he’s very intelligent, a bright little kid.”

Most important, she said, “He’s a real boy today.”

Patricia, 33, the mother of four children ranging in age from 2 to 14, began freebasing cocaine in 1985 after years of heavy drinking and marijuana smoking. She smoked crack throughout her last pregnancy with her daughter, Christina.

“I used to feel her move around in my stomach,” she said. “Then I’d light up and smoke and she wouldn’t move. She felt like a lump. I’d feel my stomach and think maybe she’d died.”

Christina remained in the hospital for a month after her birth.

“She used to shake a lot,” recalled Patricia. “I was going through lots of feelings. I felt real bad about what I did. I thought she wasn’t going to make it.”

Patricia came to Odyssey House after city officials threatened to take her children away from her. Since then, she’s stopped smoking crack.

“When I had my son, I was also using drugs, but he came out OK for some reason,” she said. “I was worried about my daughter.”

She reached over and pulled Christina onto her lap.

“But Christina’s turned out really smart. I can’t believe it,” she said. “She seems smarter than my son, and he’s 3.”

Sheila, 34, who has two children aged 4 and 2, also smoked during her pregnancy. When her daughter Maria was born, she was startled when she first saw her.

“Her eyes were just like mine. It was like she’d just taken a hit,” Sheila said. “She cried all the time. She wanted more drugs.”

Sheila said she was “a phone call away” from releasing her daughter for adoption when something stopped her--guilt.

Instead, she came to Odyssey House.

“And I stayed here and listened and kept listening,” Sheila said. “Maria’s more outgoing now. I was so worried something would be really wrong with her. She’s catching up. I thank God for it every day.”