Groundbreaking Statistical Study of Pregnant Texas Jail Detainees Finds Over 400 Monthly
by Matt Clarke
Pregnant women in jails are a long-neglected and overlooked population. Federal law does not require detailed statistical tracking of jail pregnancies.
“What it symbolizes is that women who don’t count, don’t get counted,” said American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists fellow Carolyn Sufrin, who serves on the board of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. “And women who don’t get counted, don’t count.”
This changed in Texas after a rider to the 2025 state budget, authored by state Rep. Mary González (D-Clint), appropriated $15,000 for the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) to conduct a one-time, year-long study of maternal health and mortality, making it one of the few places in the U.S. that tracks such statistics.
Initial results show that Texas jails held an average of 430 pregnant women between September and November 2025, information that was previously tracked. The new information is that, during that period, there were 42 deliveries, 28 miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy, according to TCJS Program Specialist Kaitlin Hickner. Other data being tracked is not yet public.
Proponents of the study are hoping it will illuminate the plight of jailed pregnant women and demonstrate the harm incarceration causes to both the mothers and their children while highlighting that many of them are in jail for nonviolent or low-level charges.
“We’re hoping lawmakers will see that there is nothing to be gained by locking up this population and causing generational trauma,” said Texas Jail Project (TJP) executive director Krish Cundo.
According to Hickner, all but one of the deliveries tracked occurred in a hospital. KERA in Dallas reported that a 27-year-old woman serving 30 days for failure to complete community service gave birth in her cell at the Johnson County Jail after jail staff refused to transfer her to a hospital. Unfortunately, the Johnson County scenario is not uncommon. Many women in the U.S. have given birth on the dirty, bloody floor of jail cells or into filthy toilets because jail staff ignored them when they were screaming due to labor pains and begging for medical attention.
A recent report by NBC News found 54 federal civil rights lawsuits filed by women or their survivors between 2017 and 2024 alleged severe mistreatment or medical neglect while they were pregnant and in jail. Only seven had charges involving violence. Two mothers did not survive, 17 had miscarriages, six experienced a still birth, and six babies died after being born.
The lawsuits represent a severe undercount, as they only include cases from those with the resources to hire an attorney and go to court. Most incarcerated women are poor, marginalized, and unlikely to engage in a court battle against a county or corporate provider of health care services.
TJP was founded in 2006 after an environmental activist saw how pregnant women were treated during her incarceration in the Victoria County jail. At that time, Texas jails did not track pregnancies or have health care standards for pregnancies. TJP brought former detainees to testify before the 2009 Texas Legislature resulting in the passage of HB 3654 and HB 3563, which established jail pregnancy health care standards and prohibited jails from using restraints during labor in most cases. In 2019, TJP helped in the passage of HB 1651, mandating obstetrical and gynecological care for pregnant women in jail. That legislation pushed Texas near the forefront of addressing health care for jailed pregnant women. Nonetheless, cases like the one in Johnson County still happen as jail staff brush off women detainees as “faking it,” “drug seeking,” or worse, “bad mothers” who deserve the pain.
Sources: NBC News, The Texas Tribune
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