"Well Mama" Maternal Health Limited Series | Pregnancy & Incarceration with Dr. Carolyn Sufrin

SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Dr. Carolyn Sufrin who is a medical anthropologist and obstetrician/gynecologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She worked as a physician at the San Francisco jail from 2007-2013, where she started an onsite women's health specialty clinic. Her work is dedicated to research, advocacy, and care for incarcerated women, especially at the intersection of health care and criminal justice system reform. Dr. Sufrin currently leads Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People (ARRWIP). ARRWIP is a group of researchers examining the intersections of reproductive justice and the criminal legal system out of Johns Hopkins University. ARRWIP started with the Pregnancy in Prison Statistics (PIPS) Project: the first-ever systematic study of pregnancy outcomes from carceral institutions in the U.S. She is also author of the book JailCare: Finding the Safety Net for Women Behind Bars – published in 2017 that focuses on the experiences of incarcerated pregnant women as well as on the practices of the jail guards and health providers who care for them. Her book describes the contradictory ways that care and maternal identity emerge within a punitive space presumed to be devoid of care. RESOURCES: •https://www.jailcare.org/