"Pregnant women in Arizona’s colonias live near pesticide-sprayed fields and far from care. State maternal health plans don’t consider pollution."
"Cathy Durón, 25, a preschool teacher in Nogales, Arizona, was 35 weeks pregnant when she started bleeding. She was already tucked in for the night in the home she shares with her husband, Juan Antelo, their seven cats, four dogs, and many plants.
That evening in January 2025, Durón and Antelo were laughing about the chocolate bar he’d eaten, which was hers. A piece caught in her throat, and she got up for water. That’s when the blood rushed down her legs. She had bled at other moments during her pregnancy, but this time it wouldn’t stop.
The couple got into their car and left Preston Mobile Home Park just before midnight and drove three miles to the Carondelet Holy Cross Hospital, the only 25-bed critical access hospital in this border town of 20,000 people, where Cathy was rushed into an emergency C-section due to placental abruption.
In the wee hours of January 9, 2025, Antelo, who was also in the operating room, exclaimed: “Ya salio!”— “She’s out” in Spanish, and Durón heard their daughter cry. They named their first child Sahuari, inspired by the beloved Sonoran cactus, Saguaro. She weighed only three pounds and thirteen ounces."
