Lawsuit Says Woman Gave Birth Alone On Maryland Jail Floor

Jazmin Valentine alleges jail nurses ignored her screams and pleas for help for six hours as she gave birth to her baby alone on a concrete floor.

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

Jazmin Valentine alleges some nurses working for the jail's contracted medical provider, Pennsylvania-based PrimeCare Medical, Inc., said she was withdrawing from drugs, not in labor, and some jail staffers and medical staff laughed at her, saying 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 she punched the walls of her solitary confinement cell, which did not have blankets or sheets, during her most painful contractions and removed what she believed was her baby's amniotic sac and slid it under her cell door to prove she was about to have a baby.