source: Counterfire
published: 31 March 2022

Over the past three years, two babies born to women serving custodial sentences in prison have died. In 2019, a woman gave birth alone in a prison cell at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, Europe’s largest women’s prison, without access to a midwife or any maternity care.

The baby was born in the early hours of the morning but by the time prison staff visited the woman’s cell the baby was unresponsive. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman initially refused to investigate, claiming that such an investigation was not within their remit. Nine months later, another baby was stillborn at HMP Styal, to a woman who was unaware she was pregnant.

Questions are being raised once again over why pregnant women are incarcerated in the first place. Women make up about 5% of the prison population, with the vast majority – some 82% of the 7,745 women incarcerated in 2018 – sentenced for petty crimes and non-violent offences such as shoplifting.

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