Last year in May, right in the middle of a pandemic, Elsie Akoo discovered she was pregnant with her second child. But this pregnancy, unlike her first one, was not smooth sailing.

“I was always in and out of hospital. I was in constant pain too and if I wasn’t under treatment for a blood infection, it would be for a yeast infection, blinding headaches or even diarrhoea and constant vomiting,” she says.

Nonetheless, she thought that these were all typical pregnancy pains and wasn’t especially worried.