After giving birth in 2011, Eboney Ellis says she didn’t get any time to bond with her newborn in prison. Ellis, who was incarcerated and in the custody of the California prison system, says her baby was taken away so fast that she could barely even lay eyes on him and didn’t learn the baby’s gender.

Ellis says she was given prenatal vitamins from the time she first got to prison during her pregnancy but never got access to a personal social worker she could consult if she had a question. For incarcerated women who are pregnant, social workers can be the middle person between them and an intentional start for a newborn, as they often help facilitate things like family finding, information sharing, lactation, and more. She still considered herself lucky because her family was there to pick up her baby, unlike some women whose children are quickly taken by child protective services.

“I was never able to see this child,” Ellis said. “From the moment the child was taken out, it was taken away from me.”

Ellis is now part of a coalition of advocates pushing for increased bonding with newborns in prison post-partum and more humane treatment of incarcerated pregnant people. This year, they have been rallying behind proposed legislation that would mandate that people get to spend at least three days with newborns after giving birth in state prison custody—an increase from the current one to three days before removing the child and returning them to prison. Advocates say that currently, many women get little to no time with newborns after giving birth, and there is no current standard to protect and expand that time.

The proposed legislation, Assembly Bill 2740, would also codify that prison officials connect pregnant people with social workers within a week of entering prison custody or being identified as pregnant. Additionally, the bill requires prison staff to expedite the visitation process so that incarcerated mothers can have overnight visits with their newborns as soon as possible. It would also require an incarcerated mother to be permitted to breastfeed their newborn and pump breast milk to be stored and provided to the child once they’re separated.

Read the full article about incarcerated parents and newborns by Victoria Valenzuela at Bolts.