Birthing Resistance: Stories of Hospital Prison

What is it like to give birth in a hospital where your life is traded for your freedom? How and why has hospital imprisonment become an institutionalized post-birth experience for BIPOC women around the globe? What kind of silences are built around this practice, and how are mothers and families fighting back against them? 

This podcast combines creative ethnographic storytelling, first person narration, conversation, and critical analysis to understand a global health phenomena called "hospital detention",whereby mothers and newborn babies are routinely imprisoned within hospitals following birth in order to forcibly extract surgical fees from their families and communities. Co-hosted by anthropologist Alissa Jordan and birth activist and photojournalist China Tolliver, this episode explores the emergence of these “hospital-prisons” in Haiti and around the world. We focus on two Haitian mothers—Likna and Naomi—and their experiences of birthing in Euro-American mission hospitals where they were then imprisoned. 

Held captive with their infants, and neither provided food, water, or toiletries, these US-operated hospitals leveraged Naomi, Likna, and their companions as “corporeal collateral”---holding them hostage in order to force families and communities to pay outstanding debts for obstetric surgeries.  We connect their stories to broader conversations on birth justice and racial capitalism, highlighting how hospital-prison works to commericalize kin ties and collateralize black and brown bodies. 

Called global public health’s “open secret” (Cowgill & Ntatumbe 2019) the practice of hospital detention is widespread—a standard practice in western neoliberal medicine across 52 countries of the world. It overwhelmingly impacts black women, indigenous women, and women of color and their babies during birth journeys. In spite of its ubiquity, the amount of academic articles written on the practice can fit in a single hand---even though local journalists across the world (from Kinshasa to Nairobi, and Madhya Pradesh to Bogota) have published volumes of accounts on mothers (and others) experiences of clinical captivity.  

Special thanks to "Likna", "Naomi", "Nel", "Guerlande", "Marcele", "Pierre" and to Carmelle and Jennifer at MamaBaby Haiti, to Robert Yates & Chatham House, Dr. Karen Cowgill at the University of Washington and Prof. Abel Ntambue of the University of Lubumbashi, Prof. Kakudji Yumba Pascal of the University of Lubumbashi, to Maria Cheng of the Associated Press, and to Charmaine Jordan 

English Mastered by: Jared Blalock www.molotovbliss.com Sound Credits: Nicu Hospital Beeps by JGeralyn, freesound.org; Tearing Paper Sound Effect by Keweldog freesound.org; Cash Register by CapsLock, freesound.org; Thick Bed Cover, Ruffling Blankets by CMorris035, freesound.org; Pen Click and Writing by BarkersPinhead, freesound.org; Cafe Ambient Sound by EVSecrets, freesound.org; Tearing paper by Panska Stranska Michaela, freesound.org; Stamp by Desrsuperanton freesound.org; Creaky Metal Gate by Arnaud Coutancier freesound.org; Haiti ambient street sounds by Kyles freesound.org; Prison Door Closing by BrianBaltar freesound.org; Emergency Room Sounds by Bruno Auzet freesound.org; Chopping Vegetables by Ancorapazzo freesound.org; Fence Rattling by Starvolt freesound.org; Running in the Forest by Taira Komori freesound.org; Dishes by Bevibeldesign freesound.org; Sipping Drink by VPP 2015 freesound.org; Person Falling by Blouhound freesound.org; Dufflebag by JRSevers3 freesound.org; Frying Roasting Vegetables in Oil by Neil RAouf freesound.org; Short Run and Stop by Lekingoo freesound.org