Babies behind bars
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By Maya Oppenheim
Pregnancy can be an anxious experience for all women: fears of miscarrying, birth defects, difficult labour and how you’ll cope are natural when you’re carrying a child. If you’re pregnant in prison, however, natural anxieties can become terrifying. What happens if you can’t get proper healthcare? What happens if you’re not let out of your cell when your waters break? What happens if you miscarry and no one knows what to do?
Being pregnant in prison comes with myriad fears – most distressing of all is the question of whether you will be able to keep your baby. While female prisoners are legally allowed to keep their baby for the first 18 months in a secure Mother and Baby Unit, the vast majority of children are separated from their mothers. In turn, many women go into labour knowing that their baby will be lifted from their arms within hours, that they will return to prison later alone, swollen and lactating.
According to the NSPCC’s latest report, an average of ...
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