There are way too many unknowns here so we can't judge the situation. For example ...how long was the female in jail, days hours? Did she share that she was pregnant if she knew? Was it premature as active drug addicts often do not carry full term. Lot's of unknown factors to be secured before forming an opinion.

has to give birth in a jail, which has been known to spread MRSA and other super bugs. I don't care about her life story - she was forced to give birth in jail and her child died. More of that conservative compassion.

known she was pregnant, but how do you not know when someone's in labor?

That's a high probability. Many never seek prenatal care until going to ER for delivery .

Being pregnant does not give one a get out of jail pass. ...If she shared that she was pregnant at booking then her prenatal medical records would be obtained if she had any and be placed on prenatal care plan. Such a plan utilizes hospital prenatal clinics.
Like I said. .we lack details. Premature labor and delivery are common with substance abuse pregnancies. ..withdrawal can cause labor..maybe she didn't disclose an addiction problem ...Then again. Maybe the jail medical staff missed a lot of details at booking or ignored the inmate clinically. We just need more data.

is hard to swallow. I suppose it's remotely possible, but it's just not that likely. Babies rarely just pop silently out of the womb.

It's known that active heroin addicts don't feel the labor as heroin is an analgesic narcotic. She could have a brief labor if under the influence. If she was in jail say less than 24 hours and used heroin just before the arrest...is just one such documented scenario.

Anyone who couldn't tell this was happening is utterly incompetent to be working. Period. Let alone working in a jail.

A jail where this can happen is designed badly and run worse.

A situation where either other inmates wouldn't inform authorities, or in which authorities wouldn't act, is intolerable.

You can make excuses about money and such, but that doesn't make it any less wrong. Possibly a lot of people had to do a lot of wrong things to create such a situation. The mother may even have contributed, but she certainly wasn't the only one.

I'm not willing to assume anyone at the jail did anything wong..Why? Because giving birth is a natural phenomena....it's not that clinical. Maybe the mother ignored the baby..maybe the cord wasn't clamped or tied and the baby bled out, so many possibilities .....we just don't know.

If jail staff are at fault...it will focus around the issue of not believing the inmate if she complained of being in labor...maybe she cried wolf before as this is a common inmate tactic. I'm sorry but it's true .

you have to wonder if the jail personnel could have done something different, like getting her to the hospital sooner.

democracy in the world would let this happen?

I am appalled.

Lot of things involved. Be interesting to see how this plays out.

Thanks for the update.

the newspaper needs a editor!

I'm not good with English grammar but some of those mistakes are really bad.

Will so-called "pro lifers" react to this at all? Will they give a damn?