No Births Behind Bars Mother’s Day protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in 2024. Credit – Elizabeth Dalziel
Level Up and No Births Behind Bars have fought colourfully and creatively to end the imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers.
The Campaign
After the deaths of two babies inside women’s prisons in 2019 and 2020, it was clear that prison would never be a safe place to be pregnant, so Level Up launched a campaign to end the imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers.
Working alongside a group of women with lived experience of pregnancy in prison, Level Up built a campaign to demand an end to imprisonment for pregnant women and mothers. No Births Behind Bars, a protest group of passionate mothers, was formed as a direct result.
Together, they have worked closely together in a multi-pronged campaign strategy combining media, protests, lobbying and legal interventions to bring the harrowing cruelties that pregnant women and mothers experience inside prison into public view, secure the release of several pregnant women through sentence appeals and drive a sea change in sentencing.
No Births Behind Bars ‘feed-in’ protest outside the Ministry of Justice in 2022. Credit – Elizabeth Dalziel
Level Up Co-Director
The Change
Using strategic, precise media messaging, this high-impact campaign began by shifting cultural discourse on pregnancy in prison away from reforms inside prisons to ending the use of imprisonment outright. It has secured extensive media coverage from The Times to Cosmopolitan and gained the support of key healthcare experts like the Royal College of Midwives and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
The Sentencing Council have credited Level Up’s influence in their decision to introduce two key guidelines that change the way pregnant women and new mothers are sentenced: a new mitigating factor for pregnancy (2024) and a new Imposition of community and custodial sentences guideline (2025) which directs courts to avoid custodial sentences for pregnant women and new mothers on account of the risks.
Level Up has also worked with lawyers to strategically appeal pregnant women’s sentences, securing their immediate release from prison and creating valuable legal precedents. They have also produced a legal toolkit, Representing pregnant women and mothers in the criminal justice system to ensure pregnant women are well-represented.
The public and policymakers are now onside. Polling shows that the majority of people want to see pregnant women and mothers sentenced in the community, EastEnders’ Sonia Fowler cited Level Up’s key messaging when she was pregnant in prison, and the Sentencing Review now also recommends community alternatives to prison for pregnant women and new mothers.
The Future
Level Up’s focus will soon shift onto changing the bail system for pregnant women. A third of all pregnant women are not even serving a sentence: they are being held there on remand, before their trial or sentencing, suffering all the risks and trauma that sentenced women serve. Level Up’s next goal is to ensure these women are kept at home on bail.
