In the weeks leading up to the birth, Karla Lopez Rangel and her husband, Miguel Flores Torres, had become increasingly worried. Iztapalapa, the working-class neighborhood of Mexico City where they lived, was the epicenter of the pandemic in Mexico.

So as the due date approached, the couple scrambled to find an alternative birthing plan that avoided the hospitals. The couple, both aged 24, moved to a small apartment in a neighborhood of Mexico City with fewer cases. They hired midwives who specialized in home deliveries and they bought an inflatable birthing pool from Walmart.