The Princess of Wales was greeted by shouts of “we need more funding” from women inmates as she visited a prison’s mother and baby unit.
Kate, who has been returning to public engagements after ending preventative cancer treatment in November, travelled to HMP Styal in Cheshire to meet inmates in the unit.
The unit is run by the charity Action for Children, which the princess supports as royal patron.
As she walked through the prison grounds, dozens of women inmates leaned out of the windows in the accommodation blocks to catch a glimpse of the royal visitor.
There was a loud wolf whistle and cat-calls, but also some shouts of: “We need more funding. Tell them the truth.”
The princess smiled, waved and said hello to other inmates who were leaning through the windows of a Portacabin.
The mother and baby unit provides a dedicated place for new and expectant mothers serving a prison sentence or on remand.
At HMP Styal, prisoners with babies live in a separate area of the institution and get parenting support from trained prison staff and early years practitioners.
The unit aims to establish and maintain a strong bond between mother and child, in line with evidence that a key psychological process of attachment takes place between babies and their primary caregiver in the initial months of life, which influences later development.
The prison visit was the fifth public engagement in just over two weeks for Kate, who was in March last year diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer.
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Kate, mother to George, 11, Charlotte, 9, and Louis, 6, has been a strong advocate for early years children.
Last week, her early years work saw her joining a group of primary school children on a trip to the National Portrait Gallery.
Back in November, Kate published a deeply personal video to announce that her chemotherapy had come to an end.
The video showed her spending time with her husband, Prince William, and their three children, as she said her focus was on “staying cancer free”.
