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Conn. inmate who gave birth in jail cell sues state

A woman who gave birth in jail alleges state officials denied her medical care leading up to her delivery

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Tianna Laboy’s daughter, referred to as Baby N. in the lawsuit, was born into the toilet in her cell and spent 14 days after the birth in the neonatal intensive care unit

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Josh Kovner
The Hartford Courant

EAST LYME, Conn. — A woman who gave birth in a jail cell at York Correctional Institution in East Lyme in February 2018 has filed a federal lawsuit, alleging state officials denied her medical care leading up to the traumatic delivery.

Tianna Laboy’s daughter, referred to as Baby N. in the lawsuit, was born into the toilet in her cell and spent 14 days after the birth in the neonatal intensive care unit at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London due to low birth weight, poor feeding and being more than five weeks premature, according to the lawsuit.

“All defendants failed to implement and maintain policies, practices and procedures to assure that a pregnant inmate, in obvious labor, would not have a child born in an unsanitary jail cell being attended by insufficiently trained and inexperienced medical staff,” Laboy’s lawyers, Kenneth Krayeske and DeVaughn Ward, wrote in the lawsuit, which was filed Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Correction said Monday the agency does not comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit names Scott Semple, the former corrections commissioner; the medical director, OB/GYN and warden at York; two UConn Health staff members; and two prison guards.

Staff at the prison were aware of Laboy’s pregnancy when she arrived at the prison, and she was receiving pre-natal care, a Department of Correction spokesman said last year. All inmates are evaluated medically when they come to the prison, he said.

He would not say whether anyone was aware that the woman was in labor, and, if so, why she was not taken to a hospital.

The episode prompted legislation meant to provide better treatment for incarcerated women. The bill, signed into law by then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy last May, prohibited prisons from using leg and waist restraints or shackles on women while they are pregnant or in the postpartum period and prohibited all restraints during labor and delivery. It also required state prisons to provide women with the hygiene products they need free of charge.

The Department of Correction has come under scrutiny over the past several years for its medical treatment of inmates including eight prisoners who died behind bars. Those deaths have led to a number of lawsuits. The latest, filed in November, by Krayeske and Ward, alleged a prisoner who died of larynx cancer in November 2017, less than a month before he was scheduled for release, had been misdiagnosed.

That case followed a Hepatitis C class-action lawsuit that was filed by Krayeske and Ward in July — alleging the same kinds of deficient screening and treatment that have led to large, publicly funded payouts in other states. In September, a Connecticut inmate whose lymphoma was diagnosed as psoriasis won a $1.3 million settlement from the state. Other wrongful-death cases include a lawsuit filed by the family of a 19-year-old inmate who died of an undiagnosed lung infection, and a case brought by an inmate who was discharged from prison with a baseball-sized tumor.

Responsibility for inmate health care was moved from UConn Health to the Department of Correction in July 2018 as concerns grew over medical treatment in state prisons.

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©2019 The Hartford Courant (Hartford, Conn.)

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