OTTAWA, Ont. — About 50 people, most of them mothers with their babies, held a protest Wednesday afternoon for the woman who gave birth inside an Ottawa jail cell.

Demonstrators rallied outside the Vanier offices of the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

The protest, organized by the Mother and Baby Coalition for Justice, called on Madeleine Meilleur to improve health care for female inmates and to re-unite prisoner Julie Bilotta with her newborn son.

Organizer Dawn Moore told 1310News she’s upset Bilotta is still segregated from her baby.

“To be kept apart from your newborn baby, to miss all those opportunities to cuddle them and count their toes … it’s a tragedy of the greatest proportion as far as I’m concerned,” said the Carleton University law professor.

At the rally, demonstrators wrote messages to Meilleur on diapers.

“I can’t even imagine what it would be like to give birth alone, with no medical assistance in a dark, cold, isolated prison cell,” said demonstrator Jackie Hansen.

The coalition said it wants Bilotta to be re-united with her son, perhaps in a half-way house.