Every morning, in a room filled with soft sunlight filtering past a stark reminder of confinement – razor wire fences – Gianna begins her day in a crib beside her mother’s bed. For her first year, the nursery at the Ohio Reformatory for Women has been her home, a unique space where her incarcerated mother, Abby Small, is also her primary caregiver.
“She’ll literally be almost two by the time we are getting out,” Small reflects, highlighting the bittersweet reality of raising her child within prison walls.
Small entered prison pregnant in 2021 and was accepted into the Achieving Baby Care Success (ABCS) program. This pioneering prison nursery initiative allows non-violent offenders who meet specific criteria to keep their newborns with them throughout their sentence. The core aim of the program is to nurture strong mother-child bonds, crucial for healthy development and believed to be instrumental in reducing recidivism rates among incarcerated mothers.
Stepping into the nursery, one might momentarily forget it’s a prison facility, were it not for the ever-present guard and the razor wire visible from the windows. The nursery is thoughtfully designed with individual mother-baby rooms, a communal kitchen for preparing infant meals, laundry facilities, a shared living area, and a classroom. Strikingly, there are no bars on windows or doors, and even a bathtub – typically a security concern in prisons – is available for the babies, a testament to the carefully selected, low-risk nature of the participating inmates.
Abby Small lovingly cradles her 8-month-old daughter Gianna in their room at Hope House, part of the Achieving Baby Care Success program at the Ohio Women’s Reformatory.
Small, 31, describes a remarkably ordinary daily life within this extraordinary setting. Mornings start with washing bottles, then getting Gianna ready for the day. Playtime with foam alphabet tiles and educational shows like Sesame Street fill their mid-mornings. The prison environment intrudes with the daily count, a routine where inmates return to their rooms for a headcount.
“She usually takes a nap during count – then after count sometimes we’ll come out here [in the common room] and play or eat,” Small explains, highlighting the adaptation to prison routines within the nurturing nursery environment.
The Profound Impact of Early Bonding
This seemingly simple routine profoundly impacts Gianna’s developing brain. Dr. Jeesung Jung, an expert in early childhood development at Ohio University, emphasizes that these intimate, everyday moments between infants and mothers are critical for forming vital neural pathways in a baby’s brain.
“That kind of interaction shapes the brain architecture. When an infant smiles, moves, coos, cries, mothers instantly respond to their needs with care,” Dr. Jung explains.
These interactions are known as “serve and return,” a fundamental concept in early childhood development. The baby “serves” through gestures or sounds, and the mother “returns” with appropriate and nurturing responses. Dr. Jung likens it to a “Ping-Pong ball” game, illustrating how this back-and-forth teaches children emotional expression and social interaction, fostering crucial bonds with their mothers and laying the groundwork for future relationships. Mothers, too, deeply benefit from this dynamic.
“Early bonding is very important, because as soon as a mother gives birth to a baby that new mother will be holding, touching, and having eye contact,” she states. “But the child, the baby, they themselves come with all this ability to make a bonding with a mother. So the child smiles while holding mom’s hand all enhances the mother’s feelings of love and affection for the new baby too. This bonding process is very natural.”
While biological mothers often establish an initial bond during pregnancy and childbirth, “serve and return” interactions can occur with any consistent caregiver. The challenge arises when this consistency is disrupted, as it frequently is when mothers are incarcerated. Children may experience multiple caregivers, bouncing between family members or foster care, receiving inconsistent responses to their attempts to communicate. Dr. Jung warns this inconsistency can be “detrimental” to a child’s development.
“That confusing mixed messages gives infants a sense of insecurity. That means infants will end up feeling very nervous and anxious and have a high stress level,” she elaborates on the potential negative impacts.
Morgan Brodt, 31, faced immense anxiety about her child’s future when she was initially sentenced. Living in Kentucky at the time of sentencing but giving birth in an Ohio prison, she encountered difficulties in securing a stable home across state lines for her child. Foster care became a looming fear.
“One of the scariest things about being here was watching all these women come back without their children, heart broke,” Brodt shares. “And you’re just wondering, like, I mean it’s something that you are so excited for – having a child – but at the same time it’s so scary cause am I going to have to hand him away as soon as I have him? It was hard to watch and you’re just like, when’s my time?”
Corrections Officer Ernest Vehorn, a long-time staff member in the nursery program since 2001, offers a different perspective on the program’s value.
“Whenever we get somebody in over there, the line I always use is, ‘If you’re going to be in this place, you just won the lottery,’” Vehorn remarks, emphasizing the rarity and benefit of such programs.
His statement is grounded in reality. Currently, there are only a handful of operational prison nursery programs across the United States, despite estimates suggesting that thousands of infants are born to incarcerated mothers annually. As the female incarceration rate continues to rise, this number is likely to increase, making programs like ABCS even more critical.
Initially skeptical, Vehorn is now a staunch advocate for prison nurseries.
“I thought, that’s kind of insane, being inside here with your children,” Vehorn admits. “But after working in the nursery program and seeing what actually happens, the positive and mother and child bonding – you can’t replace that. When a child is born and they have their mother there for them. You can see some of these kids, the look in their eyes when they see their mom, you see the love, you can see the bond. It’s neat.”
A Holistic Approach: Resources and Support
The Achieving Baby Care Success Program goes beyond simply allowing mothers and babies to stay together. It provides a comprehensive support system. Infants receive regular pediatric check-ups and are enrolled in Early Head Start, a school readiness program. The program strives to create as normal a childhood experience as possible within the prison setting, including holiday celebrations with crafts, activities, and even visits from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Steve Brown, embodying the Easter Bunny, brings joy to the Hope House residents and their babies participating in the Achieving Baby Care Success program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.
Mothers participate in parenting classes led by experienced educator Laura Pearce. These classes focus on child development and positive interaction techniques.
“My biggest thing is to model, to be a model for them of how we want them to act with their children,” Pearce explains her teaching philosophy. “They embrace it. It just amazes me, they are like sponges.”
Interestingly, these parenting classes are not exclusive to the nursery program mothers; inmates from the general population also participate. Pearce notes this can create emotional challenges, as mothers separated from their children may find it difficult to hear nursery program participants express typical parenting frustrations like tiredness or dealing with colic.
“They have the privilege, but not everyone does,” Pearce acknowledges the complex emotions. “There’s a lot of grief in coming back…Because they are gone, what, 48 hours, some less? And then they’re back here and they’re just supposed to forget what happened.”
Katy Will, the prison social worker, plays a vital role in providing counseling for inmates who must relinquish their babies and in coordinating nursery program services. These services include nutrition and lactation support from the local health department.
With a significant rise in drug-related arrests among women in recent decades, Will also assists nursery program mothers struggling with substance use disorders. She helps them secure placements in halfway houses or rehabilitation facilities post-release, recognizing the need for continued recovery support.
“It’s so important to give them wrap-around services so that they will be successful when they leave. Recovery is huge,” Will emphasizes. “Once they leave the program, if they are able to abstain from use, I think they come away with excellent skills and the possibility to be an excellent mother in the community.”
The Power of Shared Experience and Motherhood
Inmates within the nursery program share the full responsibility of childcare and maintaining the nursery environment. Morgan Brodt emphasizes the strong sense of community that develops from this shared experience.
“We’re all in prison here, we all struggle, but raising a child here is a whole different struggle that people wouldn’t understand if they hadn’t been there. And to have that with each other, it’s a bond like you wouldn’t… Like we’re learning, we’re learning to not just be parents, but parents in prison and we’re doing it together,” Brodt articulates the unique bond forged among the mothers.
Shaina Alloway, Reese Reed, and Morgan Brodt share a lighthearted moment watching their babies play together in the Hope House, the living quarters for the Achieving Baby Care Success program participants at the Ohio Women’s Reformatory.
The program hosted a family day in May, a poignant event that brought families together, many meeting the babies for the first time. For Abby Small, it was the first time she could be with all four of her children simultaneously, as regular visits are restricted to three visitors at a time.
Abby’s father, Tom Small, while missing his daughter, recognizes the program’s positive impact.
“I think it was probably best in her situation, to keep her out of the general population and keeping her with her child,” he reflects. “Making her have to take care of [Gianna], I think that it’s helped quite a bit. It’s been a good program. Now, do I wish we could see her more often and out in the open? Yeah, but I think it’s been a good program for Abby.”
Abby Small introduces her two-year-old daughter Quam Judah to her infant sister Gianna Judah, held by grandparents Tom and Terri Small, during a family day at the Ohio Reformatory for Women.
Britney Basham, Brodt’s sister, traveled from Kentucky for the family day and was heartened to witness the community and support system her sister had found.
“He has these friends around him, these babies, they’re besties,” Basham observed. “They are getting a little bit older and they’re sitting up and it’s making him want to sit up faster and they’re leading by example for him too. And she had other moms to lean on and I think that’s a real healthy thing.”
Basham noted a significant positive transformation in her sister.
“It’s made her grow up,” Basham states. “Watching her these last nine months especially since he’s been born, I’ve watched her go from ‘it’s all about me’ to having a child. I’ve watched her go from a child, to a mom, and a sister, and an aunt and a daughter.”
For Brodt, the program has fostered personal growth and a newfound appreciation for life’s simple pleasures. She eagerly anticipates taking her son to a park upon release.
“It’s unfortunate that it can’t happen right now, but this is definitely a humbling experience,” Brodt concludes. “And to realize that you don’t need all the things. You don’t need a phone to take all those pictures and you don’t need the constant social media outpour, and you don’t need the things that you spend all this money on. You can survive just fine with just you and your baby.”
For more in-depth information on prison nurseries across the nation and the options available to pregnant inmates, please refer to the article previously published by the Ohio Valley Resource.
