Monica Ramirez drove herself to the ER on a July afternoon. She was 30 weeks pregnant and she could not breathe.

She woke from a coma nearly 3 weeks later. In a different city. In a different hospital. Hooked up to a ventilator. And with her baby nearby. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-24/pregnant-woman-with-covid-gives-birth-in-coma

Emiliana was born July 13 — 10 weeks early, weighing 3 pounds, 6 ounces. She needed a ventilator for the first several days of her life. More than a month would pass before she felt her mother’s touch. She spent her first eight weeks in the neonatal ICU. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-24/pregnant-woman-with-covid-gives-birth-in-coma

Little is known about the impact of COVID-19 on women and the babies they carry. It is still not clear how a pregnant woman passes the virus on in the rare cases in which a baby has become infected. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-24/pregnant-woman-with-covid-gives-birth-in-coma

The day Ramirez delivered Emiliana, she was one of 19,502 people in San Bernardino County who had contracted COVID-19. (The county has now reported more than 61,000). https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/san-bernardino-county/

Of the 48 pregnant women who have been admitted to Loma Linda University Medical Center with COVID-19, 45 are Latina — an extreme snapshot of a disease that has infected and killed Latinos at a rate disproportionate to their share of the population. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-24/pregnant-woman-with-covid-gives-birth-in-coma

Reporter @marialaganga and photographer @francineorr spent some time with Ramirez and her new baby as well as other new moms who’ve given birth with COVID-19. Read more: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-10-24/pregnant-woman-with-covid-gives-birth-in-coma