Woman forced to give birth on Dirty Jail Floor after being Ignored by Prison Guards

A mother was forced to give birth on the floor of a jail cell while in custody for a first time driving offense because prison guards didn’t believe she was in labor.

Jessica Preston delivered her son Elijah at Macomb County Jail in Detroit, Michigan, on March 20 last year after being denied a trip to hospital by staff who didn’t think she was about to give birth.

The 27-year-old was eight months pregnant when she was charged for driving on a suspended license which had been revoked over an unpaid parking ticket.

She was put behind bars because she couldn’t afford her $10,000 cash bond so decided to spend five days in jail while she awaited her court date.

After five days in custody, she went into labor at 7am and told medical staff she was about to give birth but they didn’t believe her.

Seven hours later, she welcomed her son a month early on a dirty mattress pad.

They were then taken to hospital to be checked over and Ms Preston was sent back to jail for another week.

She told reporters on Wednesday how staff accused her of faking her symptoms when she told them she was having labor pains in the morning.

‘The first time I told them I was in labor was 7am, the 2nd time I told them was around 11:30 and the 3rd time I came to the medical staff, bleeding, around 1:30 and I had him at 2:40pm,’ Ms Preston said.

Prison officials told reporters medical staff ‘didn’t believe’ she was in labor when they looked her over.

‘She was sent back upstairs,’ Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said.

He claimed they were on the phone to a doctor when she began giving birth, by which point it was too late to move her to a hospital.

‘Medical staff helped deliver it. The ambulance was called and she went to the hospital,’ he said.

It’s not clear how long it took Elijah to arrive after Ms Preston’s first complaint but her family is outraged by the way she was treated.

She said the medical staff were not qualified to deliver a baby and that one cried and told her how she’d never seen it before.

The baby’s father Thomas Chastain said he was upset he missed the birth and that he’d been hoping to cut his umbilical chord.

Ms Preston is considering launching legal action against the prison but none has yet been taken.

‘Right now, I just want to tell anyone who wants to listen about it in the hopes of getting the inhumane treatment to stop.

‘There are several other incidents from this jail, including a couple deaths all under similar circumstances. We just want change,’ she said.

Macomb County Jail has been accused in the past for denying medical treatment to two inmates who died while in custody.

Jennifer Meyers, 37, died of sepsis while serving a 30-day sentence for failure to pay child support fees.

David Stojcevski, 32, died in the same prison from from severe drug withdrawal symptoms which caused him to rapidly lose weight and suffer hallucinations. His exact cause of death is not known.

An FBI investigation cleared the prison of any wrongdoing in the latter case.

It’s not clear when Ms Chastain appeared in court or what the outcome of the suspended license charge was.

Ms Preston had a previous drug possession charge which the judge noted as he set bail.