When Imoleayo Folarin, Abuja-based mother of two, walked into the hospital for a routine antenatal check-up during her second pregnancy, she had no idea she was minutes away from being admitted for a dangerously high blood pressure which had soared to a llife-threatening210/170.
Folarin had noticed she was gaining weight rapidly, but friends and family brushed it off as normal pregnancy changes. “I went from a size 8 16, and then my shoe size went from a 37 to like a 40, and people kept on telling me, ‘it’s normal, second pregnancy is different,” Folarin said while recounting her experience with journalists at a media training on sodium intake in Abuja.
About a week of hospitalisation, Folarin recounted how she awoke to more devastating news: her baby’s heartbeat could no longer be detected. Folarin had lost her baby.