An Alabama woman has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that her civil rights and those of her infant daughter were violated after jail staff where she was incarcerated allegedly left her to labor alone for more than a day.

Tiffany McElroy, now 28, was booked into an Alabama jail in May 2024. Three days after arriving, she said she felt her water break weeks before she was expected to give birth.

McElroy, who was being held on charges stemming from an allegation of substance use during pregnancy, later discovered she had suffered a pregnancy complication that could have progressed into sepsis. According to the lawsuit, she informed a guard that her water had broken and believed she would be taken to a hospital for treatment.

Instead, the complaint states that another guard who checked on her later that morning accused her of wetting herself and instructed her to return to her cell. The lawsuit says that over the following 24 hours, McElroy repeatedly asked jail employees to call 911, but they never did – even as other inmates pounded on cell windows and tables while pleading for assistance.

The lawsuit, filed by Pregnancy Justice on behalf of McElroy and her daughter, further claims that medical staff gave her only a diaper and Tylenol while she endured severe pain and worried about the safety of her baby.

According to the complaint, another inmate eventually assisted McElroy in delivering a baby girl who was not breathing when she was born on the prison floor, as prison guards watched. The filing says two women housed in the same pod attempted to revive the newborn by removing mucus from her mouth and rubbing her until she finally cried.

The complaint also alleges that, after the delivery, a guard told the women: “Y’all should’ve pushed that motherfucking baby back in” and punished the women on the cell block, prohibiting them from going outside and to religious services, and revoking phone privileges.

The Houston county sheriff’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

“I’m so grateful that my baby and I are here today, and I owe that to other women because the guards treated me like I was less than nothing. My body was on fire, and I was terrified that I’d never see my other kids again. I barely got to hold her, and I couldn’t even breastfeed,” McElroy said in a statement. “I have nightmares that we both died – and it’s like a part of me did die that day. I’m scared to even get pregnant again. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that to another woman ever again.”

McElroy told NBC that she was released last year.

Filed in the middle district of Alabama, the lawsuit argues that the events stemmed from a series of failures at the Houston county jail, including what it describes as a system where local officials focused on reducing costs instead of providing proper inmate care. The complaint names 20 defendants, among them guards who were on duty during McElroy’s labor, a nurse and the county sheriff who oversees the jail, accusing them of violating her constitutional rights.

Kathy Youngblood, a former deputy at the jail who is also a defendant in the lawsuit, described the incident as “barbaric” in an interview with NBC News.

“I tried to help her, but I was told I was going to be fired if I did help her, so I could not assist,” Youngblood told the outlet.

Another Alabama woman who claimed she was forced to give birth without any medical help in a jail shower settled a federal civil rights lawsuit against the state’s Etowah county last year. Pregnancy Justice, who also handled that case, said it showed “a disturbing pattern of inhumane treatment” for pregnant women in the state who are held on Chemical Endangerment of a Child charges for alleged drug use.

Pregnancy Justice previously found that Alabama had led other states in prosecuting pregnant women for drug-related charges since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. While states claim that such prosecutions are meant to protect pregnancies, reproductive rights advocates say they are part of a broader pattern to grant rights to fetuses that compete with those of the people carrying them.