There they waited for perhaps an hour and a half before a doctor became available. He offered no help, they said, but urged them to go to Phebe Hospital, also in Gbarnga. The family traveled on to Phebe, and again they waited. “She gave up,” Mrs. Yarkpawolo said of her daughter. She was not admitted. A doctor eventually sent the family a half-hour away to the Ebola treatment center, newly opened by the American charity International Medical Corps.

Many health workers in Liberia and its virus-ravaged neighbors have contracted Ebola while attending to births and being exposed to blood and other body fluids, provoking fears of providing maternity care. Turning pregnant women away was such a common occurrence that Yekeh Gayflor, the guard at the treatment center, sized up the situation as soon as the Nissan pulled up. “We didn’t need to ask questions,” he said.

It was not clear whether Ms. Flomo had even had Ebola; her family did not mention a fever, which typically accompanies the disease, and her symptoms could be explained by other maladies common in the region. But the center did not have equipment to test for Ebola after death, such as by swabbing her mouth. If she did have it, her baby could have been infected.

There is little research, but doctors speculate that Ebola can be transmitted from mother to baby in utero or during exposure to fluids while passing through the birth canal. A high proportion of pregnant women with Ebola miscarry and die. In outbreak areas, one study noted, every pregnant woman who is hemorrhaging should be viewed as a suspected victim of Ebola.

The International Medical Corps unit had never had a case like this in its three weeks of existence, and none of its doctors or nurses had treated Ebola before working here. “M.S.F. will know,” Sean Casey, the team leader at the center, said, using the French abbreviation for Doctors Without Borders. He called Dr. Anja Wolz, an Ebola treatment veteran based elsewhere in Liberia, who had offered to give advice on tough cases. “The baby’s not ever eaten,” Mr. Casey told Dr. Wolz.

Dr. Wolz suggested that the baby not be admitted; if she was not infected, she could be exposed to the deadly virus. If the grandmother had symptoms and required admission, she suggested, perhaps a nurse could be found to care for the newborn, using protective gear just in case. She told Mr. Casey that she thought the baby had very little chance of survival.