A three-month-old baby died Friday after reportedly choking on milk at a Bayview daycare, and her mother, a bus operator for the SFMTA, is grieving and left with many unanswered questions.
The tragic incident happened Friday at Mama Nida’s Loving Arms Childcare in the Bayview, where Gwenisha Terrell had dropped off her two daughters, two-year-old Cia, whose birthday was Friday, and three-month-old Cya, who was just born in April. As Terrell tells the Chronicle, she had been on maternity leave since December, and had only gone back to work just after the July 4th holiday.
Terrell tells the paper she had trusted Mama Nida's with the care of both her daughters, but Friday was the first time she had dropped off the infant, before going home to cook breakfast.
Mama Nida's is reportedly operated by Anita Saulny-Green and her daughter, it typically cares for seven to eight children per day, and it is fully licensed.
Saulny-Green's daughter allegedly called Terrell Friday, frantically saying that Cya had stopped breathing after choking on milk. By the time Terrell and her husband Cecil got to the daycare, which is five minutes from their home, paramedics were swarming the place. She tells the Chronicle that she and her husband rode in the ambulance as paramedics performed CPR on the child, and she was later pronounced dead at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.
Doctors reportedly gave up on trying to resuscitate the child after she had been without oxygen for 30 minutes.
As Terrell tearfully tells the Chronicle, "My baby was so happy. Nothing was wrong with her. She was so healthy. I don’t even know how she passed away."
The city Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is reportedly investigating Cya's death. The SFPD has said that they have found no evidence of foul play.
A police investigation appears to be ongoing. The Chronicle notes that the California Department of Social Services received two complaints about Mama Nida's in 2024, but both were found to be unsubstantiated.
This case follows a tragic 2023 case in which two unattended toddlers died after drowning in a swimming pool at a San Jose daycare run by a mother-daughter team. That mother and daughter, Shaheen Gheblehshenas and Nina Fathizadeh, were convicted on felony child endangerment charges earlier this year, and were both sentenced last month to lengthy prison terms.
Related: San Jose Mother and Daughter Both Receive Prison Sentences Tied to 2023 Daycare Drownings
Top image: The block of Kirkwood Avenue where the daycare is located. Photo via Google Street View
