Female prisoners in England left to give birth alone in their cells

[hackmum]

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/13/female-prisoners-in-england-left-to-give-birth-alone-in-their-cells-report-reveals

I feel increasingly despondent about the way inmates are treated in women's prisons. Not only is it now apparently acceptable to shove a male rapist in with a bunch of vulnerable women, there is a lack of basic care for pregnant women. In my view, pregnant women shouldn't be in prison in the first place, unless they've done something very seriously wrong, which the vast majority haven't.

This particular report highlights the fact that some female prisoners have been left to give birth alone in their cells. It's a depressing read.

Gosh :( I had post traumatic stress after my terrifying birth and I wasnt in a cage with no healthcare. The poor women :(

So it's a breach of human rights not to get cosmetics, reading materials etc in prison. But this is fine and dandy? Where's an ambulance chaser when you need one?

nobody knows exactly how many occur or even how many prisoners are pregnant because neither the Ministry of Justice nor the NHS collects the data

Why is we can't be arsed to collect these statistics always the fucking case for women in prison?

It boils my piss.

Fucking hell.

A vaginal breech delivery without a qualified professional?
Thank fuck mama and baby survived.

What can we DO about this? I’m horrified.

That is shocking. And they don’t even bother to collect statistics? They really don’t give two fucks about women do they?

I'm pretty amazed that there are no statistics collected for this.

This is awful. Completely shocking.

As an aside, I think women caring about and for women in prison is such a positive thing. I am really heartened to read this on MN.

So many people just don’t give a shit about how prisoners are treated. The reasons women end up in prison are, of course, complex. But often there is coercive control by a man.

www.birthcompanions.org.uk

I’ve just googled up this - will read it properly through later (and probably donate too).

Anyone got any other suggestions? Could we ask Mumsnet to do some kind of official awareness/support campaign?

www.birthcompanions.org.uk/donating-baby-Items-to-PramDepot

Birth Companions accept donated items (they specify in ‘excellent condition’) I’m past the baby years but if anywhere is going to turn up suitable nursery items for donation it’s Mumsnet!

I'm really surprised that no one records the number of pregnant women in prison. Individual prisons must know if they have heavily pregnant women, and I would have thought all prisoners have a medical.

I naively thought that all pregnant women would be housed in specialist units for the safety of the women and child.

It is horrendous.

Www.Prisonreformtrust.co.uk and www.womeninprison.co.uk have some good campaigns to support.

Although the article says stats aren't collected, the Birth Companions website says:

"Birth Companions, a charity specialising in the support of pregnant women and new mothers in prison, launches its new Birth Charter today (26 May), providing comprehensive recommendations for Government and the Prison Service on improving care for the 600 pregnant women and 100 new mothers held in prisons in England and Wales each year. "

That's an awful lot of pregnant women, given that there are only 4,000 women in prison altogether.

I agree, Birth Companions would be a fabulous charity for Mumsnet to support. It's not fashionable, but it is a cause that we should all care about, as we all know how important it is for mothers to have good maternity care and to be able to spend time with their babies.

That was a footling breach - pretty sure that is a huge red flag.

I am shocked they have no birth statistics, no stillbirth statistics and it is not treated as death in prison.

There is always the excuse that labour is unpredictable. If it is that unpredictable, they should have proper measures in place to ensure the safety of the mother and baby. How can they know it is such a vanishingly small risk if they have no records and statistics?

From personal experience, it is hard enough to get the maternity services to react to a month early, fast labour in the outside world. I had DH to get me hospital and advocate for me. My body and brain just wanted to get on with delivering the babies.

This is appalling. As Lang says, why is it that they cannot be arsed to collect stats? The inference can only be that women don’t matter enough. I will certainly have a look at the Birth companion website but just urgh. I’m so fucking tired of reading about the endless ways in which women can be fucked over, while entitled men get whatever they “need” as soon as they demand it. It must be absolutely terrifying to be in premature labour, not be believed and be alone in your cell. Even more terrifying to have two completely inexperienced nurses trying to deal with their fuck up.

Ofgs what a way to treat pregnant woman
And they don’t keep statistics
They don’t give 2 flying fucks about women and their babies
Ta for the links to the charities

This thread has put me in a rage. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m cross with myself too for being naive enough to think they packed them off to the hospital wing to give birth. I guess the hospital wing doesn’t exist outside of the movies does it?

I was naïve enough to think they were sent to prisons with mother and baby units, and they exist

WTAF is wrong with people. That should be classed as torture

Duty of care. Duty of care. Duty of care.

Repeat a thousand times.

If there is no data, the problem does not exist in the eyes of the middle classes.

To make a problem go away just make it invisible.

Remind me what totalitarianism looks like?

That's awful. According to the confidential report into maternal mortality one of the maternal deaths last year was of a mother in prison. She comitted suicide and had not had any mental health support.

Did you deliberately lie in the title of your post, or just not read the article?

I don't even know what to say - I'm astonished, staggered, shocked and incredibly angry all at once.

Utterly shocking. Can MNHQ campaign about this? It would be a very relevant campaign.

And yes, this:
pregnant women shouldn't be in prison in the first place, unless they've done something very seriously wrong, which the vast majority haven't.

There must be very few cases in which a pregnant woman is truly a danger to society.

Choochoothepanda - is that aimed at me, or did you mean to post on a different thread?

How can we ask MNHQ to start a campaign on this?