Tiffany McElroy says she knew something was wrong when her water broke inside an Alabama jail cell three days after arriving in May 2024. She was weeks away from her due date, and she immediately told a guard what had happened, expecting to be rushed to a hospital.
That did not happen. Instead, according to a federal lawsuit filed on her behalf, jail staff dismissed her concerns. One guard accused her of wetting herself and told her to go back to her cell. Over the next 24 hours, McElroy repeatedly begged employees to call 911. No one did, even as other inmates banged on windows and tables in desperation, pleading for help.
Medical staff gave her only a diaper and Tylenol as she endured severe pain. She was being held on charges related to substance use during pregnancy, and the jail apparently treated her condition as something she would simply have to manage alone.
What unfolded on the prison floor became the core of McElroy's lawsuit, filed in the Middle District of Alabama through the nonprofit Pregnancy Justice. According to the complaint, another inmate ended up delivering McElroy's baby girl, who was not breathing when she arrived. Two women in the same cell pod worked frantically to revive the newborn, removing mucus from her mouth and rubbing her until she finally cried.
The brutality did not end there. After the delivery, a guard allegedly told the women who had saved the child, "Y'all should've pushed that motherfucking baby back in." Those women were then punished: stripped of outdoor time, religious services, and phone privileges.
The lawsuit names 20 defendants, including guards on duty during the labor, a nurse, and Houston County Sheriff Chad Eggleston. It accuses them of violating McElroy's constitutional rights and points to what it describes as a systemic problem at Houston County Jail where cost reduction took priority over inmate care.
McElroy discovered after the ordeal that she had suffered a pregnancy complication that could have progressed into sepsis, a life-threatening condition. In a statement, she described the experience as traumatic enough to haunt her with nightmares about whether she and her daughter would have survived.
"I'm so grateful that my baby and I are here today, and I owe that to other women because the guards treated me like I was less than nothing," McElroy said. "My body was on fire, and I was terrified that I'd never see my other kids again. I have nightmares that we both died."
One jail employee has already broken ranks. Kathy Youngblood, a former deputy at Houston County Jail and a defendant in the lawsuit, called the incident "barbaric" in an interview with NBC News. She said she wanted to help McElroy but was threatened with termination if she did.
This case is not an isolated incident. Another Alabama woman sued Houston County after she was forced to give birth without medical assistance in a jail shower. That case settled last year. Pregnancy Justice, which handled both cases, cited what it called "a disturbing pattern of inhumane treatment" for pregnant women in Alabama custody, particularly those charged under the state's Chemical Endangerment of a Child statute.
The statute, used to prosecute pregnant women for alleged drug use, has made Alabama a national leader in such prosecutions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. While state officials claim the law protects pregnancies, reproductive rights advocates argue it represents a broader effort to grant fetal rights that compete with the bodily autonomy and rights of pregnant women themselves.
The Houston County Sheriff's Office did not respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit. McElroy was released last year.
Author James Rodriguez: "The fact that a guard blamed the women who saved a newborn's life says everything about how some facilities view pregnant women in custody, not as people deserving of care but as problems to manage cheaply."
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