An alarming new report out of Detroit indicates that a woman who had been put in a jail cell because she couldn’t immediately pay a fine had to give birth on a dirty jail cell floor. Jessica Preston has been interviewed by local news stations and told of her treatment at the Macomb County Jail, within which she gave birth to her 9-month-old son Elijha.

Preston had to go to jail because she couldn’t pay a fine for driving on a suspended license, so she had to wait in the cell until her court date. She alerted staff that she was having contractions, she told the press, but was ignored for eight hours until she was forced to deliver on the jail cell floor.

The county sheriff slammed her claim, saying that staff almost certainly treated her just fine and that she was promptly moved to the medical wing. He also said that jail treatment would improve unless taxpayers were OK with spending more money.