Until she reached her eighth month of pregnancy, Ms Zaragoza remained in a regular prison unit, sleeping in a colourless room with a rotating cast of cellmates. She was shuffled to and from health check-ups in shackles, she said, the weights on her hands and feet straining her swollen body. The shackles stayed on while she gave birth in a prison medical facility in Galveston, one leg and one arm bound to the hospital bed at all times.