A Maryland woman says her cries for help were not only ignored but mocked when she was forced to have her baby on the floor of a jail cell.
Jazmin Valentine filed a lawsuit against those she accuses of denying her care.
Her 1-and-a-half-year-old daughter is healthy, but the way she came into the world left Valentine scarred.
Valentine says no one would believe she was in labor, so she had to deliver Jamiyah alone on the concrete floor of her cell at the Washington County jail in Hagerstown.
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“Yeah, they thought I was trying to, I guess, get attention, and they thought I was crazy on drugs or something,” Valentine said. “This is what they thought, and I was really being serious. I didn’t know how else to try to prove this to them.”
She said she was a week from her due date when she was locked up on a probation violation in July 2021.
She said she begged for help when she went into labor but nurses ignored her and laughed at her.
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“I’m the only help here,” she said. “I had to become a warrior mom, a warrior woman, and get it done.”
She said Jamiyah was born hours later and it took another 15-20 minutes until a deputy doing rounds realized what happened.
“I had no blankets, no pillows, and nothing but concrete, concrete slabs, everything,” Valentine said. “You know, just water and a toilet.”
The baby suffered an infection but is OK now.
Valentine filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, the company that provides health care at the jail, and those she says ignored and mocked her cries for help. The lawsuit asks for damages as well as a written apology, policy changes and mandatory training to prevent it from happening to anyone else.
Valentine said she feels robbed of the experience of having her first child surrounded by family.
“The heartfelt moments, the bittersweet, the love in the room – I never got to feel those moments,” she said. “So that really sucked, yeah.”
She’s focusing on being a mom and hoping to one day have another child in a hospital with the love of family and the help of doctors and nurses who care.
Washington County government and the sheriff’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit.
PrimeCare Medical, which the lawsuit says is contracted to provide medical care at the jail, has not replied to request for comment.
