Kearns said she was grateful to Dr Blackadder-Weinstein for urging her to go to the hospital.

Sepsis, which can be life-threatening and is difficult to spot, is an emergency reaction to infection where the immune system overcompensates and damages tissues and organs.

“We had to go through like, three, four days of hell in hospital, the two of us, up in Birmingham and, I don’t think we realized how much we went through until now,” Kearns said.

“I’m so thankful for the doctors here at Villa, because if I was at home that day, and I probably would have rung my mum saying, ‘Oh, I feel a bit like flu-ish symptoms’, everyone would just say, ‘Have a sleep’ or whatnot, but Jodie made me go to the hospital.

“I was not wanting to go, because there’s nothing worse than obviously going to a hospital, but they probably saved my life because I had sepsis, and while having that, I wasn’t even thinking about the sepsis. It was: I’ve lost my child – and Liam was probably thinking the same.”

Kearns has visited Villa’s training ground to see her team-mates and work on rebuilding her fitness, but said she is still dealing with the mental trauma.

“I wouldn’t say I’m fully coping,” Kearns said.

“There’s days like today where I feel good, I’ve been in and around the [Aston Villa] girls and stuff, I’ve done my bike, I’ve done my testing, like, ready to get back on to it.

“But yesterday, I was upset all day because I got some news about the things we have to sort and it just comes and goes in waves.”

Kearns recognises that everyone deals with grief differently but stressed the importance of not “suffering in silence”.

She highlighted Tommy’s – the UK’s largest pregnancy and baby loss charity – as an important resource to lean on.