Pick-a-red-state and their pro-life approach to diminishing the health of families.
Pregnant women held for months in one Alabama jail to protect fetuses from drugs
https://www.al.com/news/2022/09/pregnan … drugs.html“The stress and conditions in jail and prisons, including lack of consistent access to standard prenatal care and mental health care, poor diets, poor sanitation, infestations with bugs and vermin, poor ventilation, tension, noise, lack of privacy, lack of family and community contact, can be detrimental to physical and mental health which can result in poor pregnancy outcomes for both the mother and the baby,” Sufrin wrote.
Banks has a high-risk pregnancy due to a family history of miscarriage. She said she was jailed at around six weeks of pregnancy. About six weeks into her incarceration, she started bleeding and was taken to Gadsden Regional Medical Center, according to court documents. Doctors diagnosed her with a subchorionic hematoma, a condition where blood pools near the wall of the uterus.
The condition increases the chances of miscarriage and preterm delivery, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Banks said jail officials told her she could sleep on the bottom bunk because of her high-risk pregnancy. However, her cell had one bottom bunk and two women assigned to sleep in it. So, the other woman used the bed, according to court documents, and Banks slept on the floor.
She continued to bleed for five weeks in jail. She said she also suffered from hunger and fainting spells. Two times, specialists evaluated her for drug addiction and found she didn’t qualify for free addiction services offered through the state. Her lawyers said investigators then urged Banks to say she had a drug addiction she did not have to bond out.
“Ms. Banks is currently incarcerated indefinitely because the State will not accept her $10,000.00 cash bail and she does not qualify for a residential drug treatment,” her petition said.
Since her bond conditions required rehab, and since rehab wouldn’t take her, she continued sleeping on a jailhouse floor until Aug. 25, when an Etowah County judge released her to community corrections.
https://twitter.com/McMisoprostol/statu … mTysIrAAAAYikes (@larssen)