YouTuber Jessica Kent says she had legs shackled to bed while giving birth in candid interview
(Picture: Photo courtesy of Jessica Kent/YouTube)A woman who shot to internet fame after sharing her candid experiences behind bars revealed how she had her legs shackled to a bed while giving birth in prison.
Jessica Kent, the YouTuber in question, spoke about her prison experiences in a recent episode of the Allison Interviews podcast.
Kent, who was facing up to “20 years in prison” was a meth and heroin addict as a teenager and drug and guns dealer.
She got pregnant by her drug dealer and ultimately gave birth behind bars while shackled and detoxing from drugs - and later had to fight for custody of her daughter.
She didn’t know she was pregnant until a couple of weeks after being sent to jail, after being told by a nurse.
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“I was so tired and so drained because I had been awake on meth for months. I’m sitting in this county jail nurse’s station and the woman says to me, ‘Oh, that’s why you’re feeling so sick. You’re pregnant. You can go back to the dorm now.’ I’m thinking, ‘Excuse me? You can’t just speed past that like you didn’t just say what you said,’” she said.
She also said that she didn’t receive prenatal vitamins for “three months” into her stay or “access to clean water” at a point.
“I definitely deserved to be there, but all of the trauma that occurred after I was arrested was not okay. No prenatal vitamins for my daughter. No drugs to help me detox safely so that my unborn child is okay. I didn’t have access to clean water for several weeks at one point.”
Once Kent went into labour, she was handcuffed and shackled to the bed, which she said was “just bad policy.”
“In active labour I was handcuffed. This is just bad policy. The policy clearly states if an inmate is transported outside of the prison, they have to be kept in some form of chains or shackles the entire time.”
Kent said that some of the guards and hospital staff were “uncomfortable” with shackling her to the bed and the restraints were removed. One of the male correctional officers even decided to step out of the room, which she “appreciated”.
But when a new set of guards came in, Kent said that one of the guards question why she wasn’t shackled.
“She [the guard] immediately grabbed leg chains and grabbed one of my legs and immediately shackled me to the bed. The doctor came [back] in and said, ‘She needs to get up and walk around so she can heal her body properly. She just had a baby.’ This guard looked the doctor dead in the face and said, ‘No. It’s against policy.’”
When Kent visited the courtroom for the last time after working hard to get on her feet, she was granted custody of her daughter Micah (aged 2 at the time).
“I hit my knees, hugging Micah, and crying and I told her, ‘We did it girl. We did it. We did it.’”
Now, speaking on the topic of prison reform, Kent said that it begins “with ending the war on drugs.”
“If we can incarcerate half of the amount of people that are incarcerated that leaves a lot of resources, revenue, and time to help the other people that are left in prison.”
Check out Jessica Kent on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.
