Pregnant and Imprisoned: “How I Created Parenting Plans for My Unborn Child in Prison”

• In Event: The Impact of Incarceration on Pregnancy and Parenting

Abstract

This exploratory research addresses how former pregnant inmates prepared for the upcoming birth of their unborn infants while incarcerated. This research is qualitative in nature, as it relies on in-depth interviews with former inmates who were pregnant while imprisoned in various localities across the U.S., in order to capture the thoughts and behaviors that pregnant inmates experienced leading up to labor concerning parenting. These retrospective narratives suggest that despite being incarcerated, pregnant inmates take an active role in preparation and parenting plans by locating caregivers for their fetuses, creating reunification plans, modifying their behaviors for the betterment of their unborn infants, and creating keepsakes for their unborn children, such as recording their own voices into storybooks, among others. Findings indicate that while the women in this study struggled to achieve motherhood, according to traditional scripts, they played an active pre-parenting role in prison. This research warrants attention because current estimates indicate that women are increasingly incarcerated, and pregnant women represent 6-10% of the female prisoner population.

Author

• Rebecca Rodriguez Carey, University of Missouri