yo--this is important!!
Guido I know you tryna give the best possible advice but although u might think that the shit u said makes the most sense, in fact its actually the opposite.
If you are pregnant DO NOT TRY TO GET OFF THE METHADONE.
WITHDRAWAL CAN BE FATAL TO THE FETUS. DECREASING YOUR DOSE OR ATTEMPTING TO KICK METHADONE CAN CAUSE TRAUMA, BRAIN DAMAGE, AND MISCARRAIGE (DEATH).
IF you on methadone the absolute safest thing u can do is STAY ON IT, AT THE SAME DOSE U BEEN ON!
Do not try to reduce the dose, taper down, or w/ever. Even changes that u may not feel can still affect the baby. Even small changes in ur dose, like even if you do a taper/detox that is gradual it can still harm the baby.
Some people choose to still do a detox anyways, there was a girl at my old clinic that did this and i thought the bitch was straight crazy. Its pretty much a selfish thing to do--you would rather be able to say "Oh, yea, I got CLEAN while i was pregnant so MY baby didnt have to be on DRUGS" but in reality, its puttin your baby at WAAAAAYYY higher risk than bein on it could ever cause. Bein on Methadone may cause low birth weight, premature birth, and the baby havin light effects of mild withdrawal for the first couple days (believe it or not, NOT ALL BABIES EVEN COME OUT ADDICTED TO THE METHADONE--IT AINT AT ALL A DEFINITE THING THAT A MOTHER ON METHADONE WILL GIVE BIRTH TO A BABY DEPENDENT ON IT!) But like i said, gettin OFF the methadone can cause MUCH worse than that.
Obviously I think that all of us can agree. If you had the choice to have a baby on methadone, or not on methadone, nobody would say, oh sure, methadone is safe so i dont care. You wouldnt use it for fun, recreationally if you didnt have to, while you pregnant. BUT, IF you are on methadone for MMT and you dependent on it already, and find out u pregnant and u are gonna go thru with the pregnancy and keep the baby, it is a bad idea to try to get off it. we would all like to say "hey, i didnt do a single drug while i was pregnant." But, once its done, its done. if you on the shit and you find out and you already been on it, its too late to try and make that decision. Even tho it may seem like a good idea to stop EVERYTHING, including your MMT, to do that would actually be doing the opposite of helping the baby. Its much more likely to do damage to your baby than to help it.
Also, I aint one to trust the drug companies with their whole "Oh yea, sure its safe, you can trust us" type of lies, but there has been extensive studies done on methadone and teh safety of methadone for mothers. Not only is it approved for use during pregnancy but it is safe enough that doctors even recommend for women on methadone to breast feed, becuz the health benefits of breast feeding over compensate for the very tiny amount of methadone that could get transferred to the baby thru the milk.
to look at it this way, drugs like Paxil and other anti depressants, drugs that most people see as much more harmless and acceptable than something like Methadone, are considered dangerous to be on during pregnancy, and if a woman has to be on them, doctors pretty much say that u should NOT breastfeed while on it. I aint sayin you aint got to be cautious with using methadone while u pregnant, but just that its safer than most ppl realize, and the fact that its fully approved for breast feeding mothers to take , really is reassuring , to me at least. Like, most people would not look at you like a piece of shit if you said that you on anti depressants and you pregnant. They would probably not think nothing of it. But methadone is actually way less dangerous than that type of drugs and yet certain ppl would see you as a "bad" person, not knowin no better. so the point is that if methadone is actually way less harmful than drugs that most people considers to be harmless, its really more of peoples perception of it than it actually bein dangerous. Alot of the idea of "oh, but bein on methadone during your pregnancy, its a DRUG, aint that bad" comes from peoples ignorance, not from it bein a actually bad thing.
And dont get me wrong, It aint that I am saying, Hey, methadone , its good for you! Its like vitamins, it will make your baby strong!! Feed it methadone in its applesauce! Im just sayin that compared to many of the other drugs out there , if you had to choose any drug to be on during your pregnancy, methadone is one of the safer ones that you could be on and considering its benefits plus the risks if you stop it, stayin on it is a totally acceptable, mature and wise choice that nobody should feel like they got to defend. Thats all.
And like I was gettin at before, the truth is that just like usin heroin or ANY drug during pregnancy methadone got a stigma attached to it. Nobody responsible would support using methadone if you dont need it while u pregnant, no doubt. i aint sayin its harmless, like how in the 50's the crop dusters went spraying DDT all over the place, and they told people "oh, yea, its safe!" and kids would play in the fumes, running behind the planes, but "it was safe, so it was ok!" to be breathing in all those chemicals, becuz it was "safe." Methadone is still a drug and it got effects on a pregnancy, I am definately cautious about ANY drug regardless of how safe people SAY it is , becuz anybody would want the best for their child and want to make sure that the baby is developing as safe as possible. But the thing we talking about here, aint a matter of deciding whether or not to get ON it when you pregnant. Its that if you already on, its safe to stay on, and much safer than the alternative of stopping and possibly causin yourself to miscarry.
Alot of the ideas ppl got about methadone and pregnancy, is from their mis understandings and the taboo of it becuz its associated with heroin. People think oh its as bad as using heroin while you pregnant and you wouldnt use heroin so why use methadone, its dangerous, it will fuck up the baby, etc , yet the vast majority of women who have babies while they on MMT have healthy kids, the biggest risk is a lower than average birth weight which happens alot these days with plenty of women who aint on nothing, so if thats the biggest concern of the drug I think that the benefits outweighs the risk. Also the fact that to get off it can cause alot of harm, i think that the case for stayin on methadone during ur pregnancy is pretty solid.
i feel like its important to get that information out there, cuz Connie, I know you a smart guy and you well educated about drugs and their effects, and you aint ignorant by no means. How ever, you are a person with common sense, and if you dont know no better, common sense would seem to tell you that its a good idea to get off any and all drugs/medications when you find out you are pregnant. But the 'common sense' suggestion here actually turns out to be the opposite of the safe thing to do, and so a LOT of people is at risk of believing the same thing unless they hear other wise so I am here to let yall know.
it sux, becuz like I said, nobody would CHOOSE to have a baby while dependent on methadone if they had the option but the fact is that many times u aint planning a pregnancy , shit happens, and you forced to deal with the situation as best as u can and in that case, even tho IDEALLY you woulda stopped the methadone BEFORE you got knocked up, once you are pregnant, you got to stay the course and stick with the Done or risk a lot of damage and possibly death to your fetus.
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