We thought pills made one ‘cold’ in bed

“I was so terrified of my mother’s reaction,” she recalls.

The Covid-19 pandemic period recorded many teenage pregnancies countrywide. Unwanted pregnancies lead to teen mums dropping out of school. But for some girls who were put in the family way in Nairobi’s Mukuru slums, the many months students were out of school was a blessing in disguise.

Mary* is a 16-year-old mother of a seven-month-old baby girl. She had to drop out of school after becoming pregnant last year, when schools were closed to tame the spread of Covid-19. But Mary re-joined school this January. She did not miss much.