A woman who gave birth while handcuffed to a bed on Wednesday settled a lawsuit with New York City and multiple New York Police Department officers for $750,000.
The woman, whose name is unknown, was arrested two days after her baby was due on a misdemeanor assault charge. The charge was later dismissed. She went into labor after she was arrested, CNN reported.
The lawsuit says one nurse did ask the officer to remove the cuffs while the woman was pushing and the officer reluctantly agreed. The cuffs were back on the woman an hour after birth and made it difficult for her to breastfeed.
She was unable to go to the hospital she planned to give birth at or see her doctor that she was getting prenatal care from during her pregnancy.
"That was not my birth plan. I felt like a failure to my unborn because that wasn't something that was planned for neither of us," she told CNN. "I just didn't feel like myself anymore after that. I feel like my memory got taken away. And still I'm in pain."
The woman was seeking damages for emotional distress, a violation of her civil rights, punitive damages, attorney fees and costs.
The settlement was conditioned on the defendants not admitting to violating her rights.
The baby was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit due to distress and jaundice as the baby and woman both had fevers after the birth, according to the lawsuit.
The woman told CNN that she did not receive attention from the police while she was in labor in the jail for hours because she says the cops were at a Christmas party.
A female officer made the woman take her pants off and lay on a bench in the jail to inspect her “vaginal area” to see if the baby was on the way, the lawsuit claims.
The woman’s misdemeanor charge that landed her in jail was dismissed and sealed by a judge, her attorneys told CNN.
