Pregnant woman says jail officials ignored her complaints, so she gave birth in a cell

After she was arrested for driving with a suspended license on March 15, 2016, Jessica Preston was unable to post bond.

So the Michigan woman was waiting in the Macomb County Jail until her pre-trial hearing, according to The Detroit Free Press. Two years later, the woman is now suing the county and medical staff at the jail for what she says happened next.

Preston argues that she warned staff at the jail that she was eight months pregnant and was set to have a C-Section the following month, according to a federal lawsuit as reported by Michigan Radio. The woman says she began to experience contractions on March 20 — but medical officials and correctional officers at the jail ignored her growing complaints and requests to be taken to a hospital.

Preston, a heroin addict who used it the day before her arrest in 2016, says in the lawsuit that a nurse told her that “we will not allow your baby to be born in jail.” But according to The Daily Beast, reporting on the lawsuit, a correctional officer named Jeffrey Rattray and medical officials are accused of brushing off her claims that she was experiencing worsening contractions until it was too late.

The lawsuit says Rattray told Preston that to “knock her s--- off or they wouldn’t believe her if something really happened” as she continued to use her jail cell buzzer to plead for medical attention, according to The Daily Beast. She was sent to the medical area of the jail, the lawsuit alleges, only to be sent back to her jail cell.

The medical team at the hospital said they were “not impressed” with the contractions, the lawsuit says, and officials added that “they were not ready to deal with her now.” She was sent back to the medical area hours later and placed in an “unsanitary” cell.

Then the baby’s head began to crown, the lawsuit says. Preston says that officials at the jail then asked for an ambulance to take the woman to a nearby hospital, according to The Detroit Free Press, but first responders arrived and said the woman would have to give birth inside of the jail.

The lawsuit says the boy was born on the jail cell floor, according to Michigan Radio. Robert Irhie, the woman’s lawyer, is arguing that the incident violated his client’s 14th Amendment rights and also left her with lasting emotional damage. Her child is healthy.

“We must treat prisoners and detainees and people who are housed in county jails like human beings,” he said according to Michigan Radio, “and the reason we must do that is that that is exactly what they are.”

A lawyer for the defendants, however, says the lawsuit should be dismissed.

“You have to read the complaint real carefully: she’s complaining that her baby was born in jail instead of a hospital,” John Schapka said, reported the Detroit Free Press. “Well, the Constitution doesn’t have any such right. There’s no right under the Constitution to have your baby born anywhere in particular, whether it’s a jail, a backseat of a taxi, you know, the frozen food aisle at Meijer’s.”

He added that Preston and her child received adequate medical care during the incident.

“The birth of her child was attended to by no less than five trained and properly credential medical care professionals,” he told The Daily Beast in a statement. “Both mother and child were transported to a local hospital within minutes of the birth, and neither suffered any injury or trauma as the result of where the child was delivered.”

But Preston still argues that the inadequate care has left her struggling to cope emotionally, according to the Petoskey News-Review.

“I’ve been diagnosed with some PTSD,” Preston said. “I have nightmares and some trauma from it.”