The Separation
Every year, dozens of pregnant women are sentenced to Julia Tutwiler Prison in Alabama, long considered one of the worst female prisons in the country. Like most prisons, Tutwiler has nowhere for babies to live, so, for these expectant mothers, giving birth means saying goodbye.
Christy Reach, who was incarcerated at Tutwiler, captured the sadness of this experience when I talked to her in prison in the spring of 2018, one month before her daughter Aryanna was born and taken away by Alabama’s foster care agency: “I’m afraid leaving her will make me grow cold inside.”
In an attempt to ease the trauma, the prison in 2018 began allowing doulas—professionals trained in childbirth—to attend births, holding hands, wiping tears, and reminding the mothers to breathe. Mothers still usually have only about 24 hours to bond with their babies before they are split apart and the women are sent back to lockup, a moment everyone refers to as “the separation.” But at least new mothers no longer give birth with only a doctor and prison officer present.
Alabama’s program is modeled after the Minnesota Prison Doula Project, which launched in 2010. Since that program started, the C-section rate has dropped, which means imprisoned mothers in Minnesota are having healthier, less risky births. The doulas there and in Alabama recently merged and are now working to get similar programs started in other prisons across the country.
“It’s not just the mother experiencing the trauma” of prison pregnancy and
