A tale of gross incompetence with more than a dash of sadism.

A pregnant woman, being held on a charge of fraud, started her labour.

On-site nurses told her it was indigestion, then “phantom labour.” Guards moved her to a segregation cells because her screams of pain—which went on for nine hours—were too noisy.

[A] guard told Bilotta she shouldn’t have become pregnant if she couldn’t deal with pain and it would only get worse when the “real” labour began.

No, it wasn’t Abu Ghraib. This took place in Ottawa, at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.

[T]he nurse only believed the labour was real when one of the baby’s feet emerged in the breech birth, hours after her first complaints.

Jail staff called an ambulance — although Baxter has questions about how promptly that call was made — and the baby was delivered in the cell by paramedics….[She] needed a transfusion after losing a lot of blood.

The woman remains in jail. The child, who experienced difficulties with breathing for a few days, is reportedly doing well.

More on breech delivery. I smell a fresh-baked tort.