by Brenda Fullick

For Jennifer Cook, Mother's Day was the hardest.

She had no visitors that day. Most of her friends and their kids were having a barbecue, and they agreed to take Cook's 12-year-old daughter along. Cook missed seeing her, but says it was probably for the better. She didn't really want her child spending Mother's Day in prison anyway.

"She was there, but she didn't have her mom," Cook says. "That was hard for me."

Cook is an inmate at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center, a state prison in Oakdale that processes incoming offenders and houses inmates with urgent medical needs, including many of the women who enter the system pregnant. Cook is in her third trimester, pregnant with twins. Her light blue, prison-issued shirt is stretched taut across her rotund belly; its buttons appear ready to pop at any moment. She walks slowly,
wobbling from side to side from the weight on her swollen feet and ankles. On May 31, Cook celebrated her 30th birthday (another difficult day, she says), although her girlish features and the smattering of freckles across her nose belie her age by an easy five years.

The pregnancy wasn't planned, Cook says. She got her positive test results on Dec. 2, one month after she was arrested for shoplifting four purses from a Von Maur store in Wisconsin. Petty retail theft usually doesn't warrant prison time, but Cook has a rap sheet that stretches back to 1994, all shoplifting offenses. She served 70 days in a county jail in 1996, but the punishment didn't stop her from continuing to steal. She was on probation when she was busted last November.

Her boyfriend, the father of the twins she's carrying, was arrested with her. He was sent to prison in Wisconsin, but Cook managed to convince the judge to let her serve her time in Iowa, nearer to her mother, who has agreed to take care of
the babies if Cook isn't paroled before she delivers.

Cook's daughter, who just finished fifth grade, is staying with a family friend until Cook is released. The girl visits her mom in prison twice a week, and they talk on the phone most other days.

"I wanted to promise her, 'You'll get to go to doctor's appointments with me and see the ultrasounds,' and that has not happened," Cook says. "I tell her all the time, 'I'm sorry.'"

Instead, a corrections officer escorts Cook to her prenatal appointments at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. (The state foots the bill for inmates' exams and deliveries.) She's handcuffed during transport and while she's in the waiting room. After she undresses, she's re-cuffed to the exam table for the entirety of the checkup. She's heard from other incarcerated mothers that she won't have to be restrained during the actual delivery.

"It's starting to get harder now..." Cook says. "This month is going to be kind of stressful. I am getting bigger, like, daily...

"It's been an emotional rollercoaster... the pregnancy and leaving behind your kid, and not knowing exactly when you're gonna see the [parole] board."

Women comprise the fastest-growing segment of the prison population in the United States, with their rate of incarceration increasing by almost 800 percent since the late 1970s. As the number of imprisoned females skyrockets, so too does the number of pregnant prisoners - and the number of kids with a parent behind bars. In 2000, 1.5 million children in the U.S. had a mother or father in prison, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

Most women in state prisons are moms, and due to stiff mandatory-sentencing laws and the federal government's war on drugs, a majority of these women are nonviolent offenders. Drug charges and property crimes (such as theft and fraud) are now the most common reasons women are sent to prison. A full one-third of inmate mothers said they committed their crimes to get drugs or money for drugs, the BJS report found.

This changing population poses new challenges for a correctional system designed primarily for men. Treating female inmates requires a different approach to issues like substance abuse, mental illness (particularly depression) and healthcare. Thanks to a recent report by Amnesty International and subsequent media reports, several states are rethinking their standards for of care, especially for pregnant inmates and their children.

The Amnesty study caused major waves when it revealed that most states allow or even require women to be handcuffed, chained at the waist or shackled at the ankles during gynecological exams and even childbirth.

Cassie Pierson, staff attorney for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, based in California, says shackling women during checkups and delivery is not only demeaning but often dangerous for the inmate and her newborn. Several state corrections departments are currently being sued by women who claim they've suffered injury as a result of the way the department handled the birth process.

Iowa is among eight states that have no written policy governing the use of restraints on pregnant women, although the Iowa Department of Corrections (DOC) does require that the prison guard present during delivery is a female. E-mails from Terry Boehlje, of the Iowa DOC, to Amnesty International say that in most cases, no restraints are used during labor or delivery.

Pierson doesn't believe that's good enough. She thinks state lawmakers need to enact legislation that guarantees women won't be subjected to restraint. Legal Services for Prisoners with Children recently pushed California to become the second state to pass an anti-shackling law. (Illinois was the first.) In preparation for the bill's debate, Pierson convinced several former inmates to testify before the legislature, and she relayed chilling stories collected from other inmate moms still locked up.

As a result, there was very little opposition to the bill. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed it without hesitation.

"It seemed like the right time to do something," Pierson says. "Many of our women legislators are concerned about women-in-prison issues."

For states like California and New York, which is now considering similar legislation, the sheer volume of pregnant prisoners has forced female healthcare and childbirth to the forefront.

"As the female prison population keeps growing, it's going to become more of an issue for Iowa, Kansas and some of the smaller states," Pierson predicts.

Kara Goslin, the certified physician assistant at Oakdale, says the number of inmate pregnancies in Iowa varies. Each inmate who enters prison is given a medical exam; female prisoners take a pregnancy test. If a woman is determined to have a high-risk pregnancy, which most often is due to prior drug use, she stays at Oakdale for the remainder of the gestation. If the pregnancy is routine, the inmate is sent to the women's prison at Mitchellville, then returned to Oakdale - closer to University Hospital, where she will deliver - about 60 days before her due date. Women can opt to terminate the pregnancy, but Goslin says it is up to the woman to initiate the conversation about abortion, and to pay for the procedure.

At one point last year, Oakdale was home to nine pregnant women. Currently, there are two (one of whom is Jennifer Cook), in addition to the expecting moms at Mitchellville.

Goslin says expecting mothers are allowed additional gym time to stretch and walk, and one extra snack and a carton of milk before bed (dinner is at 4 p.m.; breakfast isn't until 6:30 the next morning).

"We also provide prenatal vitamins... and they can watch a video about labor, and the possibility of a C-section," she says, adding that many of the women she sees are already mothers and know what to expect.

But the toughest thing for most moms-to-be is knowing they'll have to relinquish their babies shortly after birth, Goslin says. Iowa corrections policy dictates that the women are returned to prison a few days after the delivery, while a spouse or relative is granted temporary custody of the baby. Depending on the circumstances, some mothers choose to give their children up for adoption, or the state places the babies in foster care.

Jessamine Lamoudi was born on Feb. 7. She was a healthy baby girl, weighing in at just over 8 pounds, with a shock of dark hair that matches her mother Nikki's. Doctors had been concerned about the excess fluid surrounding the fetus, so they performed an emergency C-section. That meant Jessamine's grandma couldn't make it to the hospital in Iowa City in time to witness the delivery. The only people in the room with Nikki Lamoudi when she gave birth to Jessamine were her doctors and a prison guard. She was not restrained or cuffed during the delivery.

Lamoudi was allowed three days with her new baby before her mother arrived and took the infant home to Illinois. That was the last time Lamoudi saw her daughter. Back at the state women's prison in Mitchellville, she's watching Jessamine grow through the photos that her mother sends, and the occasional phone call.

"I talk to her on the phone from prison, and I just tell her, 'Jessamine, this is Mommy,' and I'll say, 'Mommy's coming home soon,'" Lamoudi says.

Lamoudi is 25 years old. She has four other children, all of whom are in foster care in Illinois. She recently learned that the foster families are trying to adopt her children, and she's waging a legal battle from prison to try to keep them. It's an uphill struggle. Lamoudi is currently serving time for conspiracy to deliver cocaine, and she isn't due for parole until next February. The father of her first two children was murdered last year. And the father of the middle two kids was deported to Africa, after he was caught trying to sell drugs to an undercover agent in Iowa - the same incident that landed Lamoudi in prison.

"I was with him at the wrong point in time," she says.

Lamoudi says she's never taken drugs, and she still struggles with the fact that she allowed herself to get attached to someone who ended up causing her incarceration and separation from her family. At Mitchellville, she's taking parenting classes and working toward getting her high school diploma. She wants to show the custody judge that she's capable of taking care of her kids. But that might not matter. Under the 1997 federal Adoption and Safe Families Act, the state must begin looking for permanent adoptive families for children who have been in foster care for 15 of the prior 22 months.

Although it was designed to protect children from being neglected by their biological parents, the law has severed countless relationships for the rising number of women who are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses.

Lamoudi has participated in two foster hearings via telephone, and she's not sure what the outcome will be. She wants her kids back, and she says she's learning the tools that will enable her to provide for her family when she gets out of prison. Her brown eyes well up with tears when she talks about how much she misses her children.

"I can honestly say I'm a good mother. I know I haven't been able to be there with my children like I want to be there with them, but I know if I had the chance to, I would be the best mother in the world."

Both state- and nationwide, very little research and funding have been devoted to the study and care of pregnant inmates. While there are nonprofit and faith-based organizations that mentor female inmates in Iowa, there are few - if any - that work primarily with pregnant inmates or recently incarcerated moms.

Dr. Denise Johnston says that's not unusual. She estimates that only 5 to 6 percent of states have programs or organizations dedicated specifically to prison moms - and she thinks the severe lack of programming for these mothers is a tragedy.

As a pediatrician and the founding director of the California-based Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents, Johnston believes the best way to profoundly impact mothers' lives - and to prevent them from reoffending and further damaging their relationships with their kids - is to reach them while they're pregnant.

Increasingly overcrowded prisons and climbing recidivism rates have made it clear that the American convention of locking an offender behind bars, with no focus on treatment, rehabilitation or personalized care, is failing. So, using a variety of grants and private donations, Johnston's group has launched several groundbreaking projects aimed at truly reforming inmates and their kids.

One such concept allows mothers to keep their babies with them in special nursery wards at the prison for up to a year after birth, as long as the mother is scheduled for release within that year. The idea - not without its critics, who argue that prison is an unhealthy place for kids to spend their first 12 months of life - is that allowing a mother more time to bond with her child will motivate her and produce stronger family connections on the outside. Women who participate in this program also receive therapy, parenting classes, educational support and criminal-justice advocacy.

California is slated to open its first prison nursery this summer, Johnston says. Already, five other states have implemented the program.

"Miracle" is another of Johnston's programs. It pairs each pregnant woman with a mentor from the center. Many prison outreach services end when the inmate is released, which Johnston says is a critical mistake. Mothers find themselves in the same communities, facing the same situations, temptations and often-abusive relationships, that sent them to prison in the first place. A mentor from the Miracle program meets weekly with the ex-inmate until her child is 5 years old.

"This is the only project of its kind," Johnston says. "Other programs work with pregnant prisoners, but we don't know of anybody putting in the type of time we do, in terms of how long they stay with us and the nature of the support."

Miracle first began accepting mothers in 2002, which means the oldest children in the program are approaching 4 years old. Johnston says the results have been "amazing." Recidivism rates for the mothers are negligible, and none of the babies in the program have been afflicted with developmental disabilities, premature birth or congenital problems.

"For the majority of women, this has stuck," Johnston says. "They are not going back to jail, not relapsing, and performing well as parents. A lot of them are becoming productive as citizens. When it works, it works extremely well."

Jean Basinger, an activist with Iowa CURE, a nonprofit organization focusing on prisoners' rights, would love to see a nursery program in Iowa. CURE fields inmates' complaints about everything from nutrition to adequate visiting hours. CURE hasn't worked specifically with pregnant inmates, Basinger says, although more and more female prisoners have contacted the group in recent years.

"We get a lot of complaints from the women about healthcare - mainly that health problems are not addressed in a timely manner or that they are charged [for a service]... when they are not supposed to be charged for it... They say they are not getting their routine exams like they are supposed to, and their pap smears," Basinger says.

CURE members have recently discussed the importance of inmate-child bonding programs, but Basinger says anything close to a nursery-type program would be "difficult in Iowa, because some people question whether prison is the right atmosphere for raising a baby.

"That is something we would like to see happen - that they have more contact with their infants," she says. "I think when they're in the infant stages, it is so important for them to be with their mother and have that bonding process take place, rather than them being taken immediately from their mother."

Jennifer Cook considers herself fortunate. Her family lives only 25 minutes away, in Cedar Rapids. Her friends have already pitched in to buy diapers, two car seats and two cribs for the babies. And she doesn't have to worry about losing her older daughter to foster care while she serves her sentence. Although she can't communicate directly with the twins' father (contact is forbidden for unmarried inmates in separate prisons), the couple passes information about Cook's prenatal exams and the fetuses' growth through a cousin, who is in regular contact with them both.

Most importantly, though, Cook's case goes before the parole board within days of her due date. If everything goes as planned, she may be able to leave the hospital with her twins. Most inmates aren't so lucky.

Now that she's so far along, she spends most of her time resting in bed, watching TV, reading books or doing paint-by-numbers in the art room at Oakdale. She doesn't want to put any more stress on the babies. The last seven months have been difficult enough.

Still, even with all the support she has from family and friends, Cook knows life won't be easy when she's released.

"I don't have a job... On top of getting out, I'll have two babies, and then find daycare and find employment, and my daughter is starting sixth grade. So I've got a lot to do...

"Hopefully soon everybody will all be home, and we can just move forward. I'm ready for all of us to be under one roof." CV

Comment on this story | Return to top