Pregnant Woman Handcuffed To Hospital Bed While In Labor

Posted on: September 24th, 2011 48 Comments
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In Nashville, Tennessee, an immigrant pregnant woman was shackled to the hospital bed while in labor.

According to the police she was being arrested for driving without license.

She had other documentations and registration papers of the car, but still they put her in jail where she had to stay until she had seen a judge on the local charges.

The woman soon went into labor while still in jail, and taken shortly after to the hospital where she was handcuffed to the bed.

She was separated from her son, and the officers didn’t even let her take a breast pump with her so she struggled with painfully engorged breasts in jail.



They also shackled her feet together before she could go to the bathroom which made hygienic care after the birth very difficult.

The nurses at the hospital were crying because the handcuffs upset them.

They asked the officers to take them off, but with no use. Her lawyers, citing more than $300,000 in future medical needs plus pain and suffering, had asked for $1.2 million.

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48 Responses

  1. mac says:

    No. The scag is illegal.
    She is illegal and probably paid NOTHING for her birth.
    The kid (at 18) can request the right to be a resident.
    Oddly, ya gotta wonder about a ‘lady’ like this.
    People will defend her (people are stupid), but driving with no insurance puts people like me at risk. Look at the stats, people without insurance have a higher accident rate, illegals have a much higher accident rate.
    Sorry, drifting into that area where democrats like me sound like republicans.

    • Casir says:

      It said she had no LICENSE but other documentation, like registration, on the car. If you’re going to be judgmental, at least pretend you know what you’re talking about by getting the facts right. Hell, it says it right up there ^. Who are you to say she shouldn’t get basic human rights because she wasn’t born in America.

    • Mike Unknown says:

      Mac you are scum. Enough said.

    • teece says:

      you are a sorry excuse of a human being. I dont care what she done no woman deserves to be treated like that while having a baby. You need to get your facts first

    • PernRider says:

      Have you ever heard the term “natural born citizen”? It means a CITIZEN who is born in this country. As in, the child doesn’t have to APPLY to become a resident, he’s a citizen by right at birth, if he’s born on American soil, regardless of his mother’s status at the time. And you’re a moron.

      I cannot FATHOM the type of man who would even consider doing this to a woman in labor, nor do I WANT to imagine the difficulties after delivery that this would cause. This is unconstitutional at best, as it CLEARLY false into “cruel and inhuman treatment”. And that, Mac, still covers even immigrants … or you …

    • Tiffany Lee says:

      You dip-$h!t it says nothing about her being illegal just that she was an immigrant, and how exactly do you know she was driving without insurance?

      And im pretty sure this isnt legal.

    • Monicatron says:

      Don’t pay attention to this troll.

    • Rob says:

      Hey,Everybody…Its Macs Country…Its guilty till proven innocent?She was having a child really she’s gonna go on the run for driving w/o license? And Mac ask the Indians who’s Legal and illegal…People like you are the reason we will never have a Country for Poor & Middle Class…Keep supporting the ideas of the rich.

      -The illegal immigrant gonna get you….
      -The muslim gonna get you….
      -Tonight…Fear/Fear/& More Fear…

    • mommyofone says:

      mac you do realize “immigrant” and “illegal” are not the same thing, right? and no, driving without a license is not justification for officers to refuse proper post-natal treatment, you’re not just punishing the mother but you’re also restricting vital nutrients from an INNOCENT NEWBORN BABY. moron.

    • Karl Karma says:

      Someone please ban this asshole from the site, he is obviously likely to be one of THEM.

    • Ron says:

      I hope if you ever travel abroad you fall foul of some local law whilst needing hospital treatment. I would love to hear your inhuman whining as you have bones reset whilst cuffed to a bed.
      Your kind are what make this beautiful planet such a horrid place in parts.

    • Kyuki Yoshida says:

      Considering you’re living on the soil of the natives, I don’t think people like you have the right to decide who is and isn’t allowed in this country. Don’t bitch about immigrants when you and your ancestors are ones yourselves. Also, immigrant doesn’t mean illegal and it says driving without a license, not without insurance.

    • Kiwi says:

      No papers? Handcuff her to a bed!
      Do you have ANY IDEA what labor feels like?
      After labor?
      You could sever a nut and maybe you’d understand.
      Have some god damned humanity.

  2. Cullen says:

    No? What do you mean “no”? Why is compassion for human suffering put on hold just because she is from another country? Just because she is illegal? Mac, your attitude is disgusting and is a poor reflection on the state of humanity.

  3. kris says:

    It is heart-wrenching picturing the above scene in that Nashville hospital; the victimized, laboring, woman shackled to the bed with the nurses trying to advocate for their patient in the name of proper medical procedure, but to no avail. The guards’ denial of the nurses’ requests amounts to neglect. The procedural shackling resulted in difficulty with proper cleaning after the birth. Not having access to oneself for cleaning after giving birth is just wrong and it’s inhumane treatment. To be shackled when one needs freedom of movement the most is beyond cruel.

    I think most of us can relate to a desire to provide a better life for our children than the lives we had growing up. We want to provide them with more opportunities than we had. As parents, we have a strong urge to keep them safe. I wonder what Americans would do if Mexico was the U.S. and the U.S. was Mexico. I don’t think it’s farfetched to think that in the face of years of waiting for a green card that could never come, it’s highly probable that many of us would would illegally immigrate to Mexico. If I was pregnant, had gangs fighting in my neighborhood, a police force just as afraid of the gangs as me, and inflation beyond belief, I know I would do whatever it took to try to give my growing baby a better chance at life. I would feel it was the only right thing to do, to save myself and my child. We all want to protect our children from dangerous situations if we can and provide our kids with opportunities, especially if we felt deprived of safety and opportunities as children ourselves. To me, pregnant immigrants are simply trying to give their children the best chance at survival and I don’t blame them.

    The worst part of this story is that shacking jailed women in labor is a common practice across the country. Currently, only five states have anti-shackle laws for pregnant inmates. Women in labor are routinely shackled across the belly, wrists and ankles which can cause unnecessary harm to the mother. According to http://www.thegrio.com, “The practice has been condemned by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for unnecessarily risking women’s health…”

  4. John says:

    mac, you are simply a heartless asshole.

    “paid nothing for her birth”-off what info are you going? Her nationality?

    You are clearly missing what the cops were missing-common human decency. Driving without insurance is illegal, sure, but it does not warrant the trauma the police put her through. Why don’t you ask your mom how your birth would have been if she had been cuffed?

  5. Antony says:

    It says she is an immigrant, that is not the same as ‘illegal’.

  6. Linda says:

    First off, it says she was an immigrant, not illegal immigrant. Next, it said she was arrested for driving without a license — nothing about not having insurance. There is no hope for humanity if the scuzzballs posting on this site are any indication of the average mindset. You can’t even think correctly or read correctly and you judge people without weighing all the facts. Very, very sad.

  7. Molly maguire says:

    Mac
    Yout words speak yout ignorance about the real story if this country.
    You also come from imigrants that could have had very hard time
    When they arrive to the US, find out what is the your story and
    You will be surprise!

  8. Molly maguire says:

    And then we speak against cruelty, we preach liberty, we condem the nazi era and its inhumanities, but we act just like they did. Plus we denied what America is: the Land of imigrants, the land of opportunities
    All what America reprecents becomes a lie after actions like this. But yeah I am proud to be an American!!!!

  9. LaTanya Walker says:

    This also happened to my daughter who gave birth to a 9lb 9 oz baby with the cord wrapped around his neck. Doctors and Nurses told Guards to remove the restraints but they refused and she gave birth. STafford County, Virginia!

    • daniel says:

      I completely understand about Stafford police they and their whole judicial system need to be federally checked do you know they have a 98% conviction rate, mostly due to the fact that the rappahannock regional jail is OWNED by the same judges and lawyers that put you there. not to mention the police harassment.

      • LaTanya Walker says:

        You are so right about that one, for the last 2 years I have worked to expose what they are doing here but you know what they have a very long reach. That Chichester Family is a very powerful family and they still have a stronghold on this area. In what Normal county jail scenerio would the Sheriff sit on the board of a privately owned jail? Isnt that a total conflict of interest? You lock up the people who you also place in the jail that you are a part of?

  10. LaTanya Walker says:

    And we are Born American Citizens!

  11. Michelle says:

    The only scag I see evidence of after reading this article and the comments is Mac’s mother. She must have been a haggard, salty, old BITCH to have raised trash like that.

  12. Kita says:

    This is hurtful. How could anyone be so cruel?

  13. Sidjack says:

    @ Mac , you are a stupid, ignorant,probably a member of your Republican party and sorry off an excuse off a human being and may it happen to your family members one day. The only scag i see is you mate, only we call you a scrag.

    • Marilyn Williams says:

      @Sidjack You shouldn’t assume that Mac is a Republican. I am a Republican and I am deeply disturbed by this act of cruelty.

    • Kiwi says:

      Republican?
      Dude, you’re just as ignorant as that guy. Just not evil.
      Democrats and Republicans are just words. Just be a person.

  14. WrenSongHeart says:

    Mac, I have had 3 children and the last thing you need when under that kind of stress, pain, and intensity is to be CUFFED. You need your entire body focused to get through labor. It is like an out of body experience and cuffs are OMG insane. Then to be shackled…she would be bleeding for days after birth plus mucus and healing. That is just sick-I needed to straddle a toilet to clean properly and sit of a sitz bath ( a bowl put on the toilet to soak on the toilet to heal the vaginal tissue) The dark age medieval treatment of the people has to stop. I dont care if she was from the moon and did not belong on our planet…she was giving birth for Gods Sake.

  15. C.A. says:

    She was an IMMIGRANT. Not ILLEGAL. IMMIGRANT. She was probably like millions of others of us, forgetting our wallets in a hurry. Fine, arrest her, sure. But to cuff her to a freaking bed during labor? The officers in question should be jailed themselves!

  16. Paul says:

    While I agree mac is an asshole there is something many are not noticing about this story. Driving without a license is NOT an arrestable offense, in actual fact i believe this was the woman from Nashville who was a undocumented immigrant, and possibly was charged with re-entry after deportation (check huffingtonpost for more details)
    Some states allows for restraining of pregnant women until labor begins, and most require a medical decision to determine this.
    So who is truly in the wrong here?
    The guards? The medical staff? or the state lawmen?
    But as is normal on this site you need to do some investigative work before you take anything at face value

  17. JohnQPublic says:

    As a medical professional, this is just wrong. She wasn’t a threat or flight risk so there was no need to shackle her to anything unless there is info that isn’t present in this story. The nurses should have had someone come up with bolt cutters. I would have called ems in have the chains cut. Ridiculous.

  18. hfase says:

    Whaaaa? Like she was going to run or something?

  19. TheDefender says:

    This is just one more act of violence in the WAR ON WOMEN. …and you boys WILL REAP IT.

  20. SaraE1208 says:

    this is wrong, she was in labor at the time and no one deserves to be put in so much pain, why would you handcuff her? she was in labor, she wasnt just going to walk away from that, her own child was there she wasnt going to do nothing wrong. that cop is dumb as hell like seriously wheres his heart?

  21. -=COP_KILLAH=- says:

    jesus damn these comments are fucking stupid mac is using his 2nd amendment and all of you are just calling him heartless because hes expressing his opinions (and some facts)

    jesus when i come to these web sites i usually suspect insane amounts of stupidity but this tops it off

    • ANI Hesper says:

      I believe that everyone here has a right to his/her freedom of speech. Don’t think people are complaining about that but about the story told. I think those actions are beyond cruel. Buddhist Nun

    • Kiwi says:

      It’s stupid suddenly to stand up for what’s right and condemn evil? Is that why you’re on a police brutality site?

  22. terry wagar says:

    Two Portland police officer’s Eric Carlson and John Ray break into peoples homes early in the morning and rape children and they photograph it and they poison the parents coffee pot!

    Terry Wagar

  23. Atonished says:

    It’s torture. Any moron would realize that Human Rights are above a traffic law. Crazy Americans. Laws are not software programs and people are not robots.

  24. Ron says:

    This kind of story is what the US government, use as the excuse to invade countries. Do you remember the first Gulf War? There was a ‘nurse’ in tears telling how the Iraqis had stolen incubators to take back to Bagdad, leaving babies to die. It turns out she was a Kuwati princess, she was the daughter of Saud bin Nasir Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. Furthermore, it was revealed that her testimony was organized as part of the Citizens for a Free Kuwait public relations campaign which was run by Hill & Knowlton for the Kuwaiti government. Following this, al-Sabah’s testimony has largely come to be regarded as wartime propaganda.
    Yet they themselves allow very similar treatment. Hypocrisy at its finest!

  25. Kyuki Yoshida says:

    The woman was arrested for driving without a license, why are they treating her like some kind of hard core serial killer? Shackled to the bed, as if a woman in labor is just going to up and run away. They treated this woman horrible while she was already vulnerable, and risked her health. I’m honestly surprised they took her to the hospital at all instead of ignoring her and leaving her to give birth on the cell floor.

  26. squirrel says:

    And then Mother Nature using its negative feedback
    loop mechanism needs to fix the problem. The old man went on to explain to the boy that
    the three men who seemed to be in a heated discussion weren’t
    really arguing. With all the pressure of making everyone’s
    experience perfect, it’s easy to get swept up
    and downright miserable just trying to suffer through the whole ordeal.

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