Birth Companions’ Birth Charter for Women in Prison was published in 2016 in response to long-held concerns about the risks faced by pregnant women, mothers and their babies in prison.
Birth Companions saw and took an opportunity to highlight the urgent need for improved standards of care for women and babies in custody and a complete lack of provision for them in policy and practice. Drawing on experience of supporting over 1,500 perinatal women in the prison system, the Charter set out 15 principles of care relating to pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period in prisons, and offered a rights-based, practical vision of care that was meticulously evidenced and hard to disagree with.
This report articulates the impact that our Birth Charter has had on policy and practice in the years since it was published.
The impact of Birth Companions’ Birth Charter for women in prison
