- Welcome back I'm Mama Dr. Jones, a board certified OB-GYN and mom to four. And today we're reacting to Jessica Kent's "I Had a Baby in Prison." You all have been asking me
to react to this for a year, since she uploaded it. I finally did it, and it
is incredibly emotional. I shed some tears, but
there's so much to be learned. If you're new here, hit
that subscribe button, turn on notifications. If you'd like to stick around we would love to have you,
and let's jump into the video. (upbeat, positive music) - For those of you that don't know. I am a recovering addict
who's seven years sober. I also served time in prison, and that is kind of where
our story begins today. So I got arrested in October 2011 on a set of drug charges and gun charges. Two or three weeks after my
arrest, I started to feel sick. I started to feel... I was going through detoxing. I was detoxing off of meth and roxies but I started to feel a different kind of sick, one that I wasn't used to. My stomach was hurting. I was getting period cramps,
but not having a period. All I remember is sitting
on this nurse's station, and I'm coming off of drugs, hard drugs, drugs that I used intravenously. My withdrawals are very serious. This nurse comes up to me. She is very busy, has an entire hallway of
girls waiting for her. She comes up to me and says, "Oh, well, that's the problem. You're pregnant. You can go back now." And I'm like, "Excuse, excuse me? I know you're busy, but
no, no, no, that's wrong. You must've mixed me up with someone else. I'm not pregnant." Now I was on birth control at this time. And I just thought like,
this chick is crazy. I am not pregnant. So I went back to my
cell in complete denial, and I went back to sleep. A couple of hours went by, and
a CO comes to my cell door. She's like, "I need to move
you because you're pregnant." And she yelled this you guys. - That is definitely not okay. People still have a right to protect their health information as an inmate, so that is not something
that should happen. It's also, as I'm sure
she's about to explain, dangerous for people to
have these things recognized about them when they're
in prison or in jail. - I was a drug dealer
in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Half of the jail was people that I sold to and that liked me and that
was kind of cool with me. The other half of the jail was people that baby daddy, and
I'll leave those stories in the comment section down below, had cheated on me with or
they were not cool with him, or they had some kind
of vendetta against him. So I had a lot of enemies. I did have support, I did have backup, but I had enemies too. And the one thing you
don't want in prison, at this time was jail, was for people to see a weakness in you. You don't want people to know that you're vulnerable for any reason, because now you're letting people know that there's a way to get to me. There's a way to hurt me. - You still have a right to privacy of your health information. If you are in jail, you
lose a lot of rights when you go to jail for a
crime that you committed, but you still have a right
to protect your health information from the people around you. That absolutely is not something
that should be happening. - I spent three months at this county jail with no prenatal vitamins. I didn't want to believe
that I was pregnant. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want people to know. The guards finally were like, "Oh, Kent isn't going anywhere, so we need to take her to a doctor." Now my doctor's appointments,
you guys were so embarrassing. This is not their fault. I broke the law. I deserve to go to prison. This is my fault. I take full responsibility for my actions, but I just want you guys
to see, like I got... I want you guys to understand
what it's like to be pregnant in jail and then prison. They would take me out in my
orange clothes, leg chains at this time, even though I was
pregnant, they did not care, a belly chain and handcuffs in the front. at a free clinic that
everyone else went to. I didn't get to go in the back door. I had to sit in the same
waiting room as everyone else. People would take pictures of me. People were talking about
me like whispering like, "Oh, what is she here for?" Like, "Oh, what'd you do? I wonder who that is." Like, it was so embarrassing. The nurses would be talking
about me right outside of the door. I could hear what they were saying. I was also a very, very bad addict. I had track marks all up and down my arms. Thankfully, I was only a
couple of weeks pregnant when I got arrested. So my daughter is healthy, and she's fine, and everything's good,
but we'll get there. - Yeah. This is really interesting. She's right. She's lucky that
she wasn't on those hard drugs in pregnancy because those
can be very dangerous, but withdrawal in early
pregnancy can be very dangerous as well, so I'm glad that
everything worked out for her. As far as having people come
into the clinic like this, I've had patients who were currently in jail or prison and she's right. I mean, that's exactly how it works, and it's hard on them, but
it's kind of part of the deal. If you've broken the
law, and you're in jail, people talking about her outside the room or making snarky comments within the medical team is
absolutely unacceptable. And if you happen to watch this, Jessica, I'm sorry from a medical standpoint, that anybody would do something like that because that's unacceptable. We aren't there to judge people or to make people feel bad
or to gossip about people. Nobody deserves that. I mean, you should be
able to keep at least some of your dignity, and that's just a mark
of a bad medical office. I mean, you just shouldn't
have people doing that. It's just not okay, in general. - At this point, I'm a little
over six months pregnant, and it's time for me to go to prison. They shackle me. They shackle my feet. They shackle my stomach. They shackle my hands. They put me into a van with other people. They tell me I can't go to the bathroom. If you're six months
pregnant, there is no waiting. Like you have to pee every 20 minutes, especially if the baby is
positioned a certain way, that was not a luxury
that I had, you guys. And again, I'm not saying
that, "Oh, feel bad for me. This is so horrible." I broke the law. I deserve to go to prison. I just want to walk you through what it's like
to have a baby in prison. - Despite the fact that
most states don't have rules against this, ACOG, the
American College of OB-GYN has specifically stated that
they are against the use of shackles in pregnancy. Now, this is more important
in the clinical setting, and specifically during
labor and delivery. But even that means that
it happens sometimes. And so, you know, I
don't know how, you know if you're pregnant, should
it be that you don't have to be shackled just like everybody else, if you're being moved between
a county jail and a prison, I don't know. But certainly when you are
in the physician office or in the hospital for something,
there should be an ability both because it's easier
for us to make a diagnosis, and because the patient
deserves to have adequate medical care, that is thorough, that patients are not
supposed to be, in most cases, shackled, and most of us feel that
in our office setting and in the hospital
setting that's appropriate. - When we finally get to the
prison, I'm walked into intake. The correctional officer says to me I have to squat and cough,
like all the rest of the girls, but I'm trying to bend over and do it the way that she wants, but I'm also six months pregnant, I have a huge stomach
and I almost fell over. During my time in county jail, I was also pushed and tripped, and people try to hurt me and my child. Now, we're in prison, and
I'm trying to bend over and squat and cough for her,
the way that she wants me to. But I can't because my,
my stomach is in the way. And I physically can't do what she wants, that makes the guards
scream and yell at me, and they think that I'm hiding
things in my body cavity, which of course I was not. Finally, I get through the intake process, and they put me in a hallway. I have to sit cross-legged
six months pregnant for over six hours. I was in transferred from
a maximum security prison to a medium security prison
where other women were pregnant. Now, we all handle trauma and
pain and grief differently. But I believed in my heart of hearts that because I was watching other
women go to have their babies in the hospital and come
back within 24 hours that if that girl did it, I can do it. If that girl could handle
this and be pregnant and have that baby and
come back to prison, there's no doubt in my
mind that I can do that. - So I think the last statistic
I saw on this was that about 4% of women in
state prisons are pregnant at any given time. So this is a not uncommon
occurrence that she's discussing. And you know, some of these
things are things that I think you know, I would be
really horrible for anyone and probably exacerbated
when you're pregnant. And some of them are genuinely
things that I think maybe they should consider some better
accommodations for people. I mean, her discussing,
having trouble bending over the right way. And it making the guards
really angry is very real. I mean, you can't move
exactly the same way as somebody who doesn't
have a 25 week baby and their uterus. So I think that she's talking
about a lot of things. Some of them are things that I don't know that we could help, and it doesn't sound like she thinks all of them should be changed, but certainly some of them it seems like, especially with a 4 to 5% population in a state prison should
be addressed better. And the legal system and the
medical system, honestly, all do a really poor job
of addressing these things as a whole. - A lot of the women
knew that my daughter was going into DHS custody, because I didn't have family
in the state of Arkansas. They tried to tell me over and over again, you'll never get custody
of your daughter back. You will lose. If you're in prison for over one year after your daughter is
born, you will lose. I was pregnant and emotional, and that was not very
good for my mental health, to hear that. 2012, at 4:30 in the morning, I started to get really intense back pain. And I tried to tell other
people that I was fine. I'm like, "No, I slept wrong. Like it's a prison mattress. I'm definitely not in labor. I'm totally fine." And I walked down to the chow hall. Every step was more painful. As I got closer and
closer to the chow hall, I tried even harder to hold back my pain. I'm now in active labor, but I don't, I've never been in labor before. So I'm thinking that I can
just wait it out another day. I don't have to go to the hospital today. I think I'm okay. I sit down with my tray and
I try to pick up my spork. It's prison. And I drop it cause a
contraction hit me so hard. I'm grinding my teeth. I am trying not to scream out loud. I'm basically shaking,
holding in this pain, and someone that was
sitting next to me, said, "Girl, I have to take
you to the infirmary. You're in labor. You're in labor." And she calls the cop over,
and I'm so mad, you guys. I don't know why, but I just
didn't want to tell them I was having a baby,
because I can't have a baby, because I'm going to lose the baby. And I just wasn't mentally prepared or mentally ready for it. - Exactly what she said is
what was going through my head, is she doesn't want to
admit that she's in labor because that means that
the baby gets taken away, and it's heartbreaking, and it's terrible, and I can't imagine
being in that position, and I'm really happy to be seeing her on this side where she's
gotten her life together. And it sounds like has
custody of her child. But I think sometimes it's hard to think about these things because you think, "Oh, okay, this person,
they committed a crime and deserve to be in prison." But having your child taken
away against your will is a very traumatic situation,
whether you are in prison for something that you did or not. And there's a lot of argument here as to if that is cruel
and unusual punishment. And I'm not going to make
a statement towards that. I don't know enough
about all of this to say what is politically the
correct way to look at this. But I would say that this is trauma, that people who aren't pregnant
when they enter into prison they don't generally go
through something like this. This is quite different, because it's not only emotional
and physical separation, but this is a physiologic
process that happens to your body and then the physical separation, and that's really difficult. And I can't imagine what it
felt like to go through that. Y'all wanted me to react to this. And it's, it's, it's sad. I mean, I'm glad I'm watching it. It's making me think a lot, but it's hard to watch. - The guards, very cold. Say to me, "Can you walk, Kent?" I'm like, "Yes. Yes, I can walk." And they're like "walk to the infirmary." And I just walked down
there in full active labor. No one got a wheelchair for me. No one helped me. I walked down by myself,
holding my stomach, every single step to the
infirmary which was pretty far. It was so painful. I finally get to the infirmary door, and I stand outside the door, waiting for them to pop the door. There was a process. I had to be buzzed into the infirmary, buzzed into another door,
and then another door. So I finally get to the last door where I can enter the infirmary and I'm standing outside the door, and I just want to fall down and scream, I'm in so much pain. The nurses take one look at me and kind of just assume that I'm in labor. They didn't check me out. They said, "Okay, well we have
to wait until shift change at 7:30 for you to go to the hospital." And I thought, "What?
Shift change?" Like... - Uh, yeah. I thought that too. I just spit on myself. Yeah. That's not okay. I mean, it sounds like somebody
doesn't want to take her because they don't want to get off late. But if she is in labor,
like she's describing, which we're going to take
her up for word that she is, there is absolutely no
reason that she shouldn't be transported to the hospital. You absolutely retain
your right to adequate and thorough medical
care, even as a prisoner. This is bananas. I am angry for her. And if I was a doctor accepting her and she'd told me this, I
would be so mad at them. - Like I understand
there's a process here, but they're like "We're
not going to take you. We're just, we'll wait for shift change." And I thought I'm alone. I don't know what to do. I'm in crazy amounts of pain. I've never had a baby before. I'm terrified. They put me in this wheelchair
with a like, kind of it kind of looks like a puppy pad underneath
me because I'm bleeding. No one talks to me, helps me,
asks me if I'm okay for three, almost three hours. I'm just sitting there alone. I can't call my mom. I can't call my family. I can't call anyone and
tell them I'm in labor because it's a security risk. And I sit there and active labor alone bleeding everywhere
for almost three hours. - I am horrified. Three hours alone, while
bleeding, by the way. All pregnancy complications
are slightly increased by just being in prison
during a pregnancy. That is unacceptable.
This is unacceptable. There are a few things that you
absolutely retain your right to while you are in prison, and adequate medical care to
ensure the health and safety of yourself and your baby are one of them. - Finally, an ambulance comes, and they take me to the hospital. I was very fortunate to get a nurse or to get a correctional officer with me that was very kind to me. The emergency room checks
me out in Little Rock. They say, "Yes, you're
six centimeters dilated. We have to get you upstairs." I go upstairs. My daughter was born at 3:00 PM. The nurses during my
labor were condescending, were mean, were... they didn't talk to me. They talked to the
correctional officer that was by my shoulder. They wouldn't talk to me directly at all. "Can she have this? Can she have that? Is she doing that? Is she
okay? Is the baby going here?" No one asked me anything. So finally, when my daughter
was born, I had told myself that if I don't look at
her, I won't love her. And if you just take her
away, then I'll be okay. - This is absolutely breaking my heart. And I'm mad at her medical
team for not treating her as a human. You're still a human, even in prison. I'm mad at her team, from the prison for not getting her adequate care at a time that it should have been done. This is horrible. - She came out. I saw
like a glimpse of her, and then I just looked this way, and I wanted them to take her away, because I knew I had to say goodbye. And it's, I thought if you
had just ripped the band-aid, I'll be okay. So I turned to this correctional officer, she's on my right side, and I'm crying, and I just don't want
to look at this baby. She said, "Girl, you
better look at that baby." And I did. And oh my god, she's so beautiful. And she was so little. She was six pounds, nine ounces, and I was so happy. I immediately fell in love with this baby. This, this beautiful little baby was mine. - I'm really thankful that
she at least had a CO there who treated her as a human. This is hard for me to watch
because we don't get a lot of training on this in
medical school and residency, and I've had some patients
that have been prisoners. And I think that I treated
them appropriately, and I would hope that I
would never be condescending to a patient because of
their life situation. But it's really making me
take more note of that. And I think that this is something that I talk about a lot on the internet is how listening to people's
stories has been very helpful to me in making sure that I understand how my bedside manner is interpreted, and how my actions are
coming across to patients. And so this is actually
really helpful to me in that. And I hope that other
people in the medical field will watch this and take note of it, because you don't stop being a human, just because you make bad decisions. You're still a person. And she's really making it
clear how hard that is when your medical team isn't treating you well. - Came in very quickly, and she noticed that my leg was not chained to the bed. And she gasped and said, "I
can't believe your leg isn't chained to the bed. Oh my God. I have to put that on your leg." And I kind of jerked my leg. And I was like, "Why? Like, I'm not going anywhere. I can barely walk." She said, "It's policy." Four hours after I gave
birth to my first child, I was chained to a bed. The correctional officer told
me I was not allowed to get out of the bed unless I
had to go to the bathroom. Doctors came in and said
she needs to walk around so that she can heal herself
so that she can be okay. The correctional officer
looked at that doctor and said "Per prison policy, she is
not to get out of this bed." - That is unacceptable. Again, I keep repeating this, but you retain the right
to adequate healthcare, even when you are a prisoner. Exceptions are made to shackling
during labor and delivery, and it sounds like that that
was followed in her case, but there are some states
that don't even require that. I have had to ask a CO to
take a patient out of shackles so that I could do an appropriate
exam on them in the past, and they were very resistant. So I think it's really
important that medical people watching this know that a patient's rights to have an adequate exam and
be able to adequately care for themselves, whether
it's labor and delivery, or an emergency situation in the ER, if you need their shackles
off to do a good exam, to help them, you know,
get up and move around, to keep them from getting
a blood clot in pregnancy or after delivery or whatever
it is, they have that right. And you, as a medical provider,
can ask their shackles to be removed for this. And this patient is not getting
adequate care for themselves and you can advocate for them. Again, that's not a specific
rule in every state, but most states do have a law that says if it's preventing adequate care in a medical situation,
they can be removed. - I was kind of afraid to even
ask to go to the bathroom. Honestly. I mean, it was so hard. So one of the doctors came in
to check on me after probably 10 hours had gone by at this point. And she said, I'm going
to give you a Percocet, and I'm going to give you
something else, I guess, for so I didn't get an infection or whatever some other medication. And I said, "Percocet, no, thank you. Give me like ibuprofen and
some really strong coffee because I only have 24 hours. And I just want to look at her." That doctor, whoever she is
like, if she ever sees this, I don't know why she would,
but if she ever sees us, thank you so much, but
she looked at me and said, "I think you need another 24 hours." I mean, she could just
see it in my heart to hold my daughter, Micah, for 48 hours. But those 48 hours went by so fast. - Okay. I'm going to cry. It's not uncommon for
first-time moms to be kept in the hospital for 48 hours. And I'm glad that she needed that, and they made that decision for her. Jessica, if you ever see
this, I wasn't your doctor, but maybe your doctor follows
me and will happen to see it. I am going to cry. That is all. - I knew I was going
to have to say goodbye, but I didn't want to. I really didn't want to. So two correctional officers came in. I'd never seen them before. They were big, frickin' large individuals. And they said, "Kent, it's time." I didn't respond the way that I should've, because I was so scared. I didn't want to leave this child. I had like mama bear like came out, and I said, "No, I'm holding Micah." And they're like, "Kent,
don't do anything stupid. Put that baby down. You do not want to hurt her." And I said, "You're going to have to pry out of my (bleep) dead hands." I was so upset, you guys. I did not wanna put this baby
down and walk away from her. No one told me where she was
going, who she would be with, if she'd be okay, if
I'd be able to see her, maybe talk to her on the phone,
like, you know, baby talk, but like say something. I didn't know if I was
going to see her ever again. Finally, I kind of came to my senses, and I put her down in the little bassinet the hospitals give you, and I'm holding on to the edge of the bassinet. And I said "I'll be back for you." - My gosh, this is very emotional. I have to just stop for a second. You know, I'm watching
this now with my mom eyes a little bit. And I can't imagine how hard that was, no matter what your history
is, where you came from, what you've done, being
forced to give your baby to someone else two
days after it's born is not something that most
people would handle very well. So I think her describing
this as very normal reaction, and most people watching probably agree that this seems like a
very normal reaction, but it's heartbreaking, and it's heartbreaking
to hear her retell it. And I'm sure it is hard
for her to think about it. - Now I'm holding onto
the bassinet, right? The cops grabbed me and
kind of pushed the bassinet a little bit. They cuffed me and threw me
really hard into a wheelchair. And they started wheeling me out really quickly just to get me into the security van so
that I can't escape, I guess. I don't know. They didn't know where my head was at. They have a job to do, I get it. I get back to the
prison, in the infirmary. They're asking me questions to
make sure I'm okay to go back to general population. I couldn't talk, I probably
have PTSD because of that but they kept me in the infirmary for a couple of weeks
because I was not okay. I wanted to end my life, but that wasn't something I
was going to share with them. Because when you tell someone in prison that you want to end your life, they strip you naked
put you in a pickle suit and throw you in segregation
in a dark, horrible cell. And they watch you for 72 hours. I was not willing to deal with that. I didn't tell anyone that,
I wouldn't speak at all. - She sounds like she's having
a very strong adjustment, stress reaction to this situation. And honestly, I mean, I think
what else would you expect? Of course, that's how someone
will react in this situation. It's traumatic. It's extremely traumatic, and
she's very rational about it. You know, she said "They didn't
know where my head was at. They had to take me away," but at the same time she
couldn't physically leave. And that probably is really common that you have to be physically removed instead of walking out
on your own volition in that situation. So I don't know. I don't know, guys, I keep trying to come up with like medical additions here, but all I can say is I'm
having the same emotions that you're having. This is hard to watch. And there are parts of it
where I definitely feel like we have devalued her as a human and not given her adequate
access to medical care, which is a problem. And then there are parts
of it where I'm like, yeah I don't know how you could
do that any different, but it's all sad, even, even then. - Finally, I was cleared to
go back to general population. Immediately, everyone's in my face. "Oh my God, New York, are you okay? What happened? Is the baby, okay?" Blah, blah, blah. And I went right to my rack. Didn't say a word to them. And I laid down on my bunk. I was not given anything
for the milk in my breasts. I was told I had to wrap ACE
bandages around my breast. And I had to have someone
else help me with that and keep them really tight
so the milk went away. The pain was excruciating. It hurt so bad. - Yes. Engorgement is incredibly painful. And in addition to the ACE bandages, although there's not a lot we can do to just stop milk production, it is of my opinion and probably ACOGS, because this is part of medical care that she should have
had access to some way, pump her breasts, just to be comfortable, whether she should be able
to pump and save the milk, and give it to the baby, that is completely up for debate. I don't want to get into
that, but she definitely should have been able to pump for comfort, because getting engorged and
remaining engorged absolutely increases her risk of
getting an infection, and it's extremely painful. So that is something
else that this is kind of making me want to just go advocate for prison reform for
people who are pregnant. - Because I was left
in a bed for 48 hours, and then again in the
infirmary, I, I was not okay. Well, like I couldn't walk properly. I was limping because one side of my back hurt and the
other side it was okay. The epidural was done incorrectly. I couldn't walk properly because of that. Also, during labor, because the epidural was done incorrectly, I could feel everything on
one side, not the other. I don't know why that is. I don't know if it's because
I wasn't holding still or they didn't put it in right, but it was a very painful process in the healing phase. - So yeah, I can answer that. It's not usually that
it's done incorrectly. It can be if someone is
moving a lot because they're in pain. But a lot of times this is
just the epidural is not always consistent in the way it's taken up by your body structure. It's more likely to just have
to do with somebody's anatomy than it is their actions or
the actions of the person who places the epidural. This should wear off. It's not something that
should be permanent. It doesn't happen often, but
it can happen with an epidural. - I didn't see my daughter again until she was six months old. I didn't know what she looked like. I didn't know if she was okay. I didn't know where she was. I didn't know what she was doing. The foster family did try to
send me a ton of pictures, but the prison kept sending them back. They didn't know the rules. And in that prison, you
could only get five pictures at a time. You can also only keep five pictures in your property at all times. They will get taken away from you, and you will go to segregation if you have more than five pictures. I finally get out, and Micah
has been in DHS custody for over a year. I worked a DHS case for another year, and I did hair follicle tests,
drug and alcohol counseling, therapy. I did parenting classes. I visited my daughter
every single weekend. She was placed four hours away from me. I had no money, no car, no shoes. I was living in a halfway house, and I still had to find
a way to make it work. But I did it. It was really hard, but I
overcame all of those things. I now have full custody of my daughter. And I'm so proud of myself, you guys. And I want to share that with you, because no mistake is
too great to not recover and bounce back. We're living proof that
sobriety is possible. It is not a death sentence. No mistake is too great to
not recover and bounce back. - I'm proud of you too, Jessica. I didn't expect to be very
emotional during this. You are doing a great service
by sharing your story. So thank you. Thank you for being here today. If you're new, and
you'd like to subscribe, we would love to have you. Hit that subscribe button,
turn on notifications So you never miss an upload. Be kind to yourself, to each other, to me. In the comments, be kind, and I will see you next Monday. (Uplifting music)
