Overview: In this session we will explore some of the key issues relating to pregnancy, birth and early motherhood in the prison system, including recent developments, serious incidents, and learnings related to reproductive justice. Together we will discuss the feasibility of ‘equivalence of care’ as a healthcare principle, and of embedding choice and consent in punitive systems. We will also explore the notion of ‘trauma-informed care’ in such spaces. Issues will include crisis pregnancy, abortion services, birth, Mother and Baby Units, maternal separation, and contraception.

 

Content warnings: Reference will be made to imprisonment, maternal separation and children’s social services, crisis pregnancy, experience of trauma and abuse, and to the deaths of babies in traumatic births in the prison estate in recent years.

​

Keywords: Prison, reproductive justice, choice, consent, trauma, pregnancy, birth, motherhood

 

Kirsty Kitchen is the Head of Policy and Communications at Birth Companions www.birthcompanions.org.uk