via Pixabay
Being a Black woman and having a baby is risky enough. Issues like maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate, and pregnancy complications like premature birth make having a child risky for Black women.
Add prison to the mix and it gets REALLY scary.
Over a quarter of the imprisoned women in the world are in the U.S. And pregnant women in prison and jail have faced torturous shackling DURING childbirth for years. It’s not like someone in labor is going to run away! And yet, it’s common practice.
The movement to end shackling has had some success, but it’s still not completely eradicated despite bans and progress in recent years.
Still, pregnant women face inadequate medical care in prisons and this affects the health of the children born inside.
Statistics and information about women in prison aren’t prevalent enough. The first study from the Pregnancy in Prison Statistics (PIPS) project came out this year - no one else is tracking pregnancy outcomes in prison systematically.
Prison is no place for a child to be born, but if prisons insist on confining pregnant women they should be prepared to take care of the health of expecting mothers.
The problem is, they’re not. And instead of treating pregnant women with care, they’re treating them as if they’re nothing but dangerous criminals.