A lawsuit states, woman gave birth alone on the Maryland jail floor

• Jazmin Valentine says she was left to give birth alone on the dirty, concrete floor of her jail cell.
• She claims jail nurses ignored her screams and pleas for help for six hours.
• The baby developed a type of staph bacteria infection that is resistant to many antibiotics.

A woman who claims she was left to give birth alone on the dirty concrete floor of her Maryland jail cell filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday, alleging that jail nurses ignored her screams and pleas for help for six hours.

Jazmin Valentine claims that some nurses working for the jail’s contracted medical provider, Pennsylvania-based PrimeCare Medical, Inc., told her she was not in labour and that she was just trying to get out of her cell late at night in July 2021 at the Washington County jail in Hagerstown.

Valentine claims that during her most painful contractions, she punched the walls of her solitary confinement cell, which had no blankets or sheets, and removed what she thought was her baby’s amniotic sac and slid it under her cell door to prove she was about to have a baby.

Hearing Valentine’s pleas, a fellow inmate called Valentine’s boyfriend, who called the jail pleading with staffers to help her, according to the lawsuit.

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According to the lawsuit, the nurses also ignored a concern raised by a jail deputy about Valentine, who did not contact any superiors.

He discovered Valentine holding the baby girl in her cell about 15 minutes after she was born, just after midnight on July 4, 2021. An ambulance was called to take them to the hospital.

The baby developed a type of staph bacteria infection that is resistant to many antibiotics as a result of the unsanitary conditions in the cell.

Valentine, who had never given birth before, expressed concern that her baby would die and that she would bleed out during the delivery. But, realising that no one was going to assist her, she stated that she was determined to deliver the baby on her own.

“Anything could happen in my brain,” she said of her fears. “I honestly felt like I was in the hands of the devil.”

The lawsuit claims that Valentine’s rights under state law and the Constitution were violated by Washington County, Maryland, its sheriff department and sheriff, as well as nurses and deputies at the jail.

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