Dozens of Oklahoma inmates give birth each year
When Aleia Holt gave birth to her daughter in 2005 at OU Medical Center, she didn’t know her doctor’s name. She still can’t recall it, even though they spent 18 hours of labor together.
“He was just there to deliver my baby, and that was it,” she said.
Her feeling of detachment was only compounded by the fact she spent her entire hospital visit with her foot shackled to the bed.
Holt was and is now in the custody of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, one of dozens of state inmates every year who give birth. After they bring their children into the world, the women are
returned to the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, to rejoin the thousands of other incarcerated mothers in a state that has housed more of them per capita than anywhere else in the country since 1991.
State Corrections Department protocol still allows the restraining of pregnant inmates, but the policy has not been mandatory since 2001. Although former officials and inmates said doctors often insisted on the practice in the years following the policy change, a department spokesman said the practice has not been authorized for at least a decade.
Holt, 32, entered state custody on drug charges seven months pregnant. While she was able to bond with other pregnant inmates at Mabel Bassett, where all pregnant inmates are housed, she felt scared and alone, save for the tiny life growing in her belly.
Holt said her problems started when she was 12, and her mother left her at her grandmother’s home and never came back. In a letter, her mom would later write she had found a new husband, and having a daughter just got in the way.
Holt’s resentment toward her mom only grew during her rocky teenage years, and when the consequences of those years culminated in prison time, she hoped she could put an end to the cycle.
At night, lying in her cell, Holt said she would often speak to a daughter she didn’t know how to support, physically or emotionally.
“I would lie in the bed sometimes and just talk to my daughter when I was pregnant, and it just felt — I don’t know, I was happy,” Holt said. “I didn’t think it was going to turn out the way it did. I just knew I was going to be loved. Loved for who I was.”
She would often take one of her headphones and place it to her belly, so that her daughter could hear the radio, and the baby’s little legs would start to squirm.
“I felt really blessed,” Holt said.
“I couldn’t imagine, at that time, having my daughter stripped from me.”
Devastating effects
As of last month, 16 Oklahoma inmates have gone into labor in 2017, resulting in 15 live births and one miscarriage, according to the state Corrections Department. Ten more women are currently pregnant. In 2016, 40 women gave birth while in the department’s custody.
Studies have shown most female inmates, both in Oklahoma and nationwide, are mothers, and their incarceration can have devastating effects on their children.
“If trauma is not resolved, children grow up with depression, anxiety, unresolved anger, even PTSD,” said Susan F. Sharp, a sociology professor at the University of Oklahoma and the author of several books and studies on female incarceration in Oklahoma.
“They may start using alcohol and drugs, which ends up getting them in trouble. Younger children don’t understand. They may develop attachment disorders and that may put them at risk for becoming sociopathic.”
“I already feel like I’m falling into that pattern, or that I have,” Holt said, sitting at a table at The Education and Employment Ministry, where she receives job and life skills training. “But, I’m changing that because I don’t want my daughter to grow up hating me or holding a grudge toward me. Because, I did hate my mother for the things that I’ve been through, because I blamed her.”
Holt’s daughter lived with her grandmother until she was released from prison. Holt said she tried to care for her the best she knew how, but she missed out on any chance to bond with her daughter in her first few years of life. In many ways, the two felt like strangers.
“I didn’t know that she needed that emotional support, because I didn’t think she loved me. So, I was like, ‘Just let me take care of her as best as I knew I could.’ And, she told me she hated me, and that broke my heart. I just gave up. You know, I tried to be the best parent I could be, that I knew how to be, and it didn’t work.”
Her daughter has been in foster care ever since Holt returned to prison. Holt said she tried to maintain their relationship, but her daughter, now 11 years old, is angry with her. The two have not spoken in a year.
“I’m going to do what I can,” Holt said. “I’m not giving up.”
Holt is scheduled for release in July. She is allowed to leave the Kate Barnard Community Corrections Center, where she is currently serving time, to work a day job at a hotel, and she has a group home set up to take her in after her release.
When a pregnant inmate has no family to take her child and no plans for adoption have been made, the Department of Human Services conducts a consultation with the inmate to help determine appropriate caregivers for the child, according to the department’s protocol. Child Welfare Services then performs routine foster care placement.
The department does not track the number of children in its system born to incarcerated mothers, a spokeswoman said.
‘The worst feeling ever’
Holt was taken to OU Medical Center to give birth. State Corrections Department policy states all births by incarcerated mothers are to be done at the Oklahoma City hospital.
She remembers leaving for the hospital the day of her daughter’s birth, as well as a sense of gloom.
“I only got to spend like 24 hours with her, and then she got put in the incubator because she couldn’t breathe that well,” Holt said.
“I had to leave my daughter there and come back to prison, and it was just like the worst feeling ever. That’s my daughter. I wanted to be there with her. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want to leave.”
Holt was allowed to hold her daughter for a few hours, but it was hard to feel connected to her, knowing they would soon be separated.
“I just felt detached,” she said.
“Trauma comes in many forms,” said Justin Jones, former Oklahoma Department of Corrections director.
“I used to spend a lot of time in visiting rooms on weekends,” he said.
“And you would see a child has this unrelenting undeniable love for their parent, whether they are incarcerated or not. That bond is real.”
The policy of mandatory restraint of pregnant inmates during birth was changed in 2001, and by the time Jones became director in 2005 there was a nationwide push to end similar policies in other states.
“I think what was surprising to me was how many states fought back, not wanting to unrestrain the soon-to-be mothers,” Jones said.
“There was some pushback from certain hospital officials, and we basically explained through the data analysis that the harm that comes when you do that, and only if there is a need to protect the mothers from themselves, like if they had a mental illness that might contribute to an unsafe environment.”
Jones, who recalls one year during his tenure as director when 50 inmates gave birth, said he and his staff agreed the policy was not driven by evidence that indicated pregnant inmates were a safety or security threat.
“I do recall occasionally running into a doctor that preferred that they be restrained simply because they believed an inmate is somebody that should be restrained in a hospital setting,” he said.
“I just thought it was one of those things that needed to be challenged.”