An Alabama Mom Delivered a Preterm Baby in a Jail Cell. She Says Staff Refused To Help.

A woman is suing Houston County in southeast Alabama for violating her constitutional rights after she was forced to give birth preterm with no medical assistance in the county jail. 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court earlier this week, accuses the county, jail, and officers involved, in part, of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs and the denial of medical care in violation of the 14th Amendment. 

Tiffany McElroy was 34 weeks pregnant with a history of preterm labor when she was arrested on May 23, 2024, on chemical endangerment charges, according to the complaint filed on McElroy's behalf by the nonprofit Pregnancy Justice. The charge, which involves exposing children, including fetuses, to a controlled or chemical substance or drug paraphernalia, stemmed from allegations that McElroy had used substances during her pregnancy.

In the early hours of May 26, 2024, while in Houston County Jail, McElroy alerted the jail staff and officers that her water had broken, according to the suit. Considered a medical emergency when the water breaks before 37 weeks, McElroy and her child were at risk of serious infection, sepsis, and premature birth. But "despite her obvious signs of labor," reads the complaint, "no one from the jail came to help." 

Instead, McElroy claims that for nearly 24 hours, she received no medical assistance for her preterm labor. Although she met with the jail's physician assistant and nurse hours after her water had broken, McElroy was only given a diaper and ibuprofen, even though her fetus showed signs of an elevated heart rate. And her repeated pleas to go to the hospital were ignored. 

Although pain in her abdomen continued to escalate, and her amniotic fluid continued to leak, McElroy was forced to attend her first court appearance and move about the jail without assistance, reads the complaint. 

As McElroy's labor progressed into the second night, "other women detained in the jail repeatedly alerted jail staff to the emergency…but jail staff rarely responded," and "made no effort of any kind of emergency medical assessment or assistance," according to the lawsuit. By the early morning on May 27, 2024, McElory was screaming in pain and began to feel the urge to start pushing. 

Still, the jail staff did not act. Indeed, one officer said she was forbidden from calling 911 or assisting McElroy because "she and the jail could be held accountable if anything happened to [McElroy] or her baby," the lawsuit alleges. And other detained women were threatened with tasing and other punishment for attempting to help McElroy deliver her baby. "Despite these threats," other women in McElroy's pod insisted on helping her deliver as her contractions slowed, according to the complaint. 

When McElroy's baby was born, "she was not crying or breathing," but thanks to the quick thinking of one of the other women to "suction the baby's mouth and nose three times and stimulat[e] the chest…the baby started breathing," reads the complaint. It was only after the baby was delivered that officers took McElroy and her baby to the hospital, with one officer telling the women in the pod: "Y'all should've pushed that motherfucking baby back in." 

More than 24 hours after her water broke, her preterm baby was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit, and McElroy was treated for a serious bacterial infection that can be brought on "when the amniotic sac is ruptured for a prolonged period of time," according to Pregnancy Justice. McElroy also received a blood transfusion due to the amount of blood she lost during the delivery.  

"I'm so grateful that my baby and I are here today, and I owe that to other women because the guards treated me like I was less than nothing," McElroy said in a statement. 

The state of Alabama jails more women for endangering their pregnancies than any other state, according to Karen Thompson, the legal director at Pregnancy Justice. "From June 2022 to June 2024…Alabama prosecuted 192 women on pregnancy-related charges, mostly on charges that they used drugs while pregnant," reports AL.com. Alabama is followed by Oklahoma (112 prosecutions), South Carolina (62), and then Texas and Mississippi (both at just 9), according to an analysis by Pregnancy Justice. 

Whether it is wise to use the criminal justice system to incarcerate pregnant women who allegedly ingest substances may be up for debate, but what happened to McElroy was an undeniable violation of her rights and dignity. She faces an unfortunately steep uphill battle to hold the government actors who denied her and her child adequate medical care accountable.

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