‘They treated us like animals:’ Mother testifies about giving birth behind bars

WASHINGTON — Jessica “Drew” Umberger was serving a five-year prison sentence in Georgia when she gave birth to her daughter Jordyn in 2018. She spent the entire pregnancy behind bars.

“They treated us like animals,” Umberger told our Washington News Bureau. “It was horrific… The morning I gave birth was probably the hardest. I was not allowed to say goodbye to her when I was taken back to the prison.”

Umberger testified before a Senate subcommittee this week about the neglect and mistreatment she says she both witnessed and experienced herself.

“I remember a woman in the room next to mine screamed, ‘help. I’m having my baby,’” Umberger said in her testimony. “The nurse on duty shouted down the hallway, ‘shut up. You will see a doctor in the morning.’ The woman ended up giving birth on the bathroom floor.”

Umberger said she was forced to have a Cesarean section even though she wanted to have a natural birth. She said she was told it was departmental policy because she had one 18 years earlier.

Umberger testified about being kept in unsanitary conditions while healing with an open wound. She said for days, she was kept in the same underwear she was wearing the day she gave birth.

“I remember thinking if people only knew what was happening down here what would they say and would they even care?” Umberger testified.

Umberger’s story is one of more than 120 documented cases of medical mistreatment and abuse of pregnant women in jails and prisons around the country in the last six years, according to a Senate Subcommittee investigation led by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA).

“As we speak, American women are pregnant and facing abuse in prisons and jails and it is a dire and urgent human rights crisis,” Ossoff told our Washington News Bureau.

Another woman testified that her daughter gave birth “into a prison toilet” even though her daughter had cried out for help.

“They are representative of a pervasive crisis,” said Ossoff.

Umberger was released from prison in 2022. She said thanks to the help of nonprofits like Living on Purpose ATL and Motherhood Beyond Bars, she has since rebuilt her life. She now works for the nonprofit Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative (PAD) helping people experiencing poverty and homelessness.

Umberger said she came forward to share her story in the hopes of helping other women.

“There needs to be the same medical care that a woman that is living in the free world, they call it, the woman incarcerated too needs the same kind of medical care,” said Umberger.

Ossoff said this is just the first hearing in Congress on this issue. He said there will be more as this investigation continues.

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