Motherhood Beyond Bars

Motherhood Beyond Bars Motherhood Beyond Bars supports infants with an incarcerated mother and reunifies families. We work to reunify families and keep them whole.

Poor people are disproportionately represented in prisons and their children are highly vulnerable. Incarcerated people have a median pre-incarceration income that is 41% less than non-incarcerated people of similar ages. The families we work with match national data for incarcerated populations: they are more likely to be poor, Black and to experience negative maternal and infant health outcomes than the average citizen. In Georgia, poor women inside prison give birth to babies who are then cared for by poor women outside of prison. When an incarcerated woman gives birth in Georgia, she is separated from her newborn within 24 to 48 hours; there are no “prison nurseries” in Georgia so women return to prison within days of giving birth and caregivers are notified to pick up the infant at the hospital. The vast majority of infants are cared for by a family member, most frequently a grandmother, who takes on the responsibility of caregiver-- often with little warning. Many of these families lack a robust support system to help with the inevitable challenges that come with caring for a newborn. The hardships that follow often perpetuate a persistent cycle of poverty for the family. Motherhood Beyond Bars is based on the belief that every woman, no matter her background, deserves to have a healthy pregnancy, birth and the opportunity to establish a bonded relationship with her children. We work for a world where every child is born into a community of care. In 2020, we developed three new programs that support infants and reunify families:

1) Probation and Parole Pregnancy Support
2) Caregiver Support Program
3) Reentry Benefitting Families

You can learn more about our programs at www.motherhoodbeyond.org

The opposite of addiction is connection.Yesterday, our team spent the morning at Metro Transitional Center to close out ...
09/30/2026

The opposite of addiction is connection.

Yesterday, our team spent the morning at Metro Transitional Center to close out National Recovery Month with the women there. Over coffee and donuts, they talked through the recovery community organizations across Georgia, so everyone knows where to find their people no matter where they go next, and went over the "Don't Run, Call 911" law.

Then came the paper. Every link in that chain carries something a woman is letting go of on one side and what she wants her recovery to look like on the other. Our team also taught everyone to fold paper hearts, and MBB hearts are now hanging all over the facility.

No one recovers alone. 🩷

09/27/2026

It's our birthday! 🎉

Eight years ago today, Motherhood Beyond Bars was founded. What started with volunteers showing up inside a Georgia prison is now a team working with mothers before, during, and after birth, and with the caregivers and babies waiting for them at home.

Eight years in, that means over 500 babies, more than 1,000 family members, and a presence in 13 counties and jails across Georgia. Every one of those numbers is a family that stayed connected.

If MBB has meant something to you this year, celebrate with us by making a birthday gift.

www.motherhoodbeyond.com/donate

If you attended Starting Strong yesterday, each session's CME activity code must be entered within 48 hours of that sess...
09/25/2026

If you attended Starting Strong yesterday, each session's CME activity code must be entered within 48 hours of that session. Log in to EVOLVE through Morehouse School of Medicine and enter the code for every session you attended. Credit is awarded by session, not one code for the day.

Scan the code or claim your credit here: https://oepe.msm.edu/node/1353 🩷

Yesterday, clinicians, treatment providers, peer support specialists, law enforcement, researchers, advocates, and mothe...
09/25/2026

Yesterday, clinicians, treatment providers, peer support specialists, law enforcement, researchers, advocates, and mothers with lived experience spent the day together at Morehouse School of Medicine for Starting Strong.

DBHDD Commissioner Kevin Tanner welcomed us, and Dr. Carolyn Sufrin opened with her keynote, Connecting the Cascade of Care: Why Maternal Health Behind Bars Matters for All. Panels throughout the day covered treatment during pregnancy, what providers are seeing on the ground, and the policy changes that would keep mothers and babies together. Between sessions, attendees mapped the resources they know across Georgia, one sticky note at a time.

The most powerful part of the day came last. Women who have lived this told their own stories, in their own words. As Anna put it, "My story isn't over." Every session before it was about them. That hour was theirs.

Thank you to our co-hosts CORAL and , to every speaker, to Georgia Council for Recovery for bringing the bus, and to everyone in that room. It was an incredible day. We will share more in the coming weeks. 🩷

Before 2019, no one in the United States had counted how many pregnant women enter prison each year. Dr. Carolyn Sufrin ...
09/23/2026

Before 2019, no one in the United States had counted how many pregnant women enter prison each year. Dr. Carolyn Sufrin and her team at Johns Hopkins changed that. Their Pregnancy in Prison Statistics study found 1,396 pregnant women admitted to 22 state prison systems and the Federal Bureau of Prisons in a single year. As Dr. Sufrin put it, "The fact that nobody collected these data before signals just how much this population is neglected."

On Thursday, Dr. Sufrin will give the keynote at Starting Strong: Pregnancy, Opioid Use, and Transforming Systems of Care at Morehouse School of Medicine, co-hosted by MBB, CORAL, and Morehouse School of Medicine.

Her research is the reason we can say, with numbers, what mothers have been telling us for years. We are grateful she will be in the room with us. 🩷

There is a federal bill in Congress right now written for pregnant and postpartum women in prisons and jails.In July, Re...
09/17/2026

There is a federal bill in Congress right now written for pregnant and postpartum women in prisons and jails.

In July, Rep. Ayanna Pressley reintroduced the Justice for Incarcerated Moms Act (H.R. 9817) with bipartisan cosponsors. It would fund doulas, perinatal care, and counseling for incarcerated mothers, support bonding and reentry programs, push states to end shackling during pregnancy and birth, and back diversion programs that keep pregnant women out of custody in the first place. It also calls for two federal studies, because the data on pregnancy in custody is still thin.

Diversion, connection, and care are the work MBB does every day in Georgia. The mothers we support do not have to wait for Washington, but a bill like this would mean many more mothers get this support. We will keep tracking it. 🩷

Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/mvtuh3nj

September is National Kinship Care Month. For the families we work with, kinship care is not an abstract term. It is a g...
09/14/2026

September is National Kinship Care Month. For the families we work with, kinship care is not an abstract term. It is a grandmother, an aunt, or a family friend saying yes.

When a mother gives birth while incarcerated, that is usually who her baby goes home with. That caregiver is the bridge. They are the one sending photos, taking the calls, and reading the emails out loud so a mother and her baby stay connected until they are back together.

That is why our Holistic Family Support program works with caregivers as well as mothers. Diapers, Bloom Box visits, phone and email connection, and someone to call with questions. Keeping a mother and her child connected takes the whole family, and we are working with all of them. 🩷

On September 24, clinicians, researchers, advocates, policymakers, and people with lived experience will be in one room ...
09/09/2026

On September 24, clinicians, researchers, advocates, policymakers, and people with lived experience will be in one room at Morehouse School of Medicine for Starting Strong: Pregnancy, Opioid Use, and Transforming Systems of Care.

Dr. Carolyn Sufrin of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will give the keynote. Panels throughout the day cover treatment during pregnancy, what providers are seeing on the ground, and the policy changes that would keep mothers and babies together, with moderators from Emory's Rollins School of Public Health and School of Medicine.

We are co-hosting with CORAL and Morehouse School of Medicine, and the room is nearly full. If you are registered, we will see you on the 24th. If not, follow along here. We will be sharing speaker spotlights and takeaways from the day. 🩷

Gloria Steinem died last week at 92. Most of the tributes talk about Ms. magazine and the women's movement. Fewer mentio...
09/07/2026

Gloria Steinem died last week at 92. Most of the tributes talk about Ms. magazine and the women's movement. Fewer mention the work she never stopped doing for women in prison.

In 2004, she started a program to send Ms. magazine to prisons and domestic violence shelters. By 2023, it was reaching more than 5,400 incarcerated readers. She was treasurer of the Angela Davis Defense Fund in the 1970s and worked for years alongside Dr. Donna Hylton, a formerly incarcerated activist (pictured).

She also named the thing we see every day. Introducing a Vice News documentary on women in prison, she pointed out that "75% of those...are mothers and the primary caregivers to their children," and that the trauma of separation becomes "a self-perpetuating cycle that for millions is nearly impossible to escape."

That cycle is exactly what MBB exists to interrupt. We work with mothers before, during, and after birth so separation does not have to be the whole story. Thank you, Gloria. 🩷

Read JB Nicholas's piece in The Free Lance News: https://www.thefreelancenews.org/home/the-prison-reform-advocacy-of-gloria-steinem

Several members of our program team attended the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network W.A.V.E.S. Conference: three day...
08/07/2026

Several members of our program team attended the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network W.A.V.E.S. Conference: three days of community, connection, and empowerment.

For one team member, it was about more than sessions. Walking into a room full of people doing this same work felt like finding, in her words, "my people."

This work is hard. Moments like this make it sustainable. 🩷

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