As Laura Weathers watches her 5-month-old daughter Kaydence deal with an adorable case of the hiccups, she can’t help but feel like this is her first time becoming a mother.
“I just love that connection that me and her have, that I didn’t have before with my other kids because I was still trying to manage my drug abuse,” she said.
She’s with her baby constantly, relishing every moment. But in early 2023, life was drastically different for the 33-year-old. Weathers was living in a tent in Lancaster, homeless and addicted to fentanyl.
She says she went into foster care when she was 13 and has been on her own since she was 16.
Last February, Weathers landed at the LA County women’s jail Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, for stabbing a former partner in a domestic violence case. While incarcerated, Weathers learned she was five weeks pregnant with Kaydence, her eighth child. Her other children range from ages 2 to 16.
“I thought I was going to do 16 months upstate, and they had already told me that I was five weeks. So I just figured there was no way for me to keep the baby and I was just going to have to go through the pregnancy knowing that in jail,” she said.
Weathers, who doesn’t have custody of her other kids, saw a chance to carve out a new path and stay with her baby after she learned about an LA County program that diverts pregnant women from jail into housing with supportive services.
“I’m just going to have to humble myself and do it,” Weathers said. “Or else, I am not going to keep this baby and I figured if I was in a program, they would definitely let me keep her.”
The county’s Office of Diversion and Reentry, or ODR, established by the LA County Board of Supervisors in 2015, focuses on developing and implementing programs to divert people with “serious mental, physical and/or behavioral health needs away from the LA County Jail and into community-based care."
In 2018, ODR launched its Maternal Health Program, which is managed by Casey Nairin. She says it gives pregnant women, with low-level offenses, a unique opportunity to leave jail and go into supportive housing while on probation for about two to five years. Each case must be approved by the District Attorney’s office and a judge.
For Weathers, participating in the program meant she could stay with her baby, get crucial services such as parenting classes and therapy and stay off the streets.
“They have to be motivated to remain abstinent from substances,” Nairin said. “They have to be motivated to work with a case management team and you know, one thing that we also look for is motivation to be a mother.”
So far, 230 women have been diverted into the maternal health program at a cost of roughly $40,000 a year, per mother, according to ODR. That’s compared to the over 60,000 dollars a year the county spends to lock up one person in jail.
Across the U.S., over two million women are jailed every year and 80% are mothers, including 55,000 who are pregnant when they’re admitted, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
Dr. Gianna Le is an OB/GYN in LA County jails and sees about 300 pregnant women a year. She says those who give birth while in jail typically place their baby with relatives or in foster care.
“Many of the pregnant women that come to jail are at higher risk for certain medical conditions such as substance use disorder, mental health disorder, sexually transmitted infections,” she said. “They often have a history of trauma in their life and interpersonal violence.” Research also shows that after incarcerated women are released from jail or prison, they face high rates of food insecurity, poverty, unemployment and homelessness.
Nairin says when mothers are diverted into the maternal health program, they receive crucial services they might otherwise not have access to, especially if the participant doesn’t have family support or housing available.
Katina Holliday of Holliday’s Helping Hands runs one of the transitional housing site for mothers in the program and loves being able to witness firsthand how some of the women progress.
“To see that you transform someone’s life and that they were willing to put in the work…now sometimes, we get them and honestly, and they don’t want to put in the work but we believe that love is the greatest motivational factor here at Holliday’s Helping Hands, so we love them,” she said.
Success looks different for each person. Nairin says sometimes some women do not complete the program or they may be re-incarcerated.
“I think for some women, getting through probation is successful,” said Nairin. “For others, having custody and keeping custody of their children is success. For others, maintaining sobriety is enough to be successful. And for a lot of our women, moving into their own apartments with their children is what success looks like.”
That’s the case for 38-year-old Michelle Loest who found permanent housing in November. She has struggled with drug use, been arrested multiple times and in 2020, was pregnant with her second child, Emma, while in jail for burglary while her older son, Adrian, was sent to foster care.
“When I was in jail, I actually asked to doctor to schedule me for an abortion because I had my son that was in a foster home and I didn’t know if her dad was going to be willing to change,” Loest said.
But Loest says she never got scheduled for an abortion and instead, was faced with the prospect of carrying the pregnancy to term while incarcerated. “At first I was hurt, angry, like, mad at myself, scared obviously, worried for her,” she said.
After accepting a spot in the maternal health program, Loest gave birth to Emma and cared for her afterward in transitional housing. She also had a third child. Since completing the program, Loest has stayed off drugs, gotten her record expunged and holds a steady full-time job. Loest and her husband live together and have custody of their children.
“I think that if I would have had this opportunity, let’s say ten years ago, I probably would have taken it and changed my life,” she said.
An opportunity that is changing Weathers’ life. She’s been drug free for over a year while in the program and hopes to move into her own place in a few months.
“There are people that know me as a person and they wouldn’t believe that I would have a daughter right now because of where I’ve been in my life,” she said. “And I did it. I have her and she’s mine, legally, and they trust me with her.”