THERE I am, by the side of the road, trying desperately not to be sick.

Trying to find a sheltered bit of jungle so that the convoy of three 4x4s behind me aren't witness to my shame.

We have been travelling for nearly three hours along roads that are barely passable in rainy season because the deep craters fill with water and flood. Our driver Mohammed is skilled and cautious but we're still bounding around like thrill seekers on an intense rollercoaster as the horizon, which I'm desperately focusing on, dips and swoops and looms as my stomach dips and swoops with it.

There's only 20 minutes to go but I can't go on - this is a full scale emergency. Everything contained in my torso is about to become uncontained; it's loose as soup in there and that internal soup is about to project itself all over the photographer in the seat next to me.

Mohammed uses the brakes, Tom does an Olympian-worthy leap from the vehicle to give me clear passage out and I'm scrabbling with my seatbelt - release.

Women in Sierra Leone do this journey on the back of a motorbike while in labour. On the back of a motorbike. While in labour. If they're lucky, if there's money to hire a Honda and driver. If not, it's on foot through the jungle, snakes a risk, giving birth at the side of the road a bigger risk. Death or the baby's death the worst risk.

There I am, with my anti-sickness tablets from Boots, my belly full of raw, cold-pressed cereal bar, unable to cope in an air-conditioned Land Rover. Up the road, hen, you're an embarrassment.

There's been such celebration of the birth of a little boy this week. No title so essentially a private citizen. Good luck to the wee chap, all the privilege of his parentage but none of the ribbon cutting obligations. Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor's in a nice position - his life will be intruded upon, yes, but his older cousins will bear the brunt.

For him, it'll be a life of luxury.

I was in Sierra Leone with the NGO Christian Aid recently to visit some of their work in maternal health in Pujehun District. The country has the worst rate of maternal death in the world: 1360 women will die per 100,000 live births. For context, the next worst is the Central African Republic at 882. In the UK it's 8.9.

In contrast, the conversation around the birth of the Queen's latest great-grandchild has been nothing but frippery, some scrapping over whether Meghan should have appeared on the day of the birth to show us her newborn or whether she was right to raise an eyebrow at the practice and eschew it for a compromise.

The right wing press were unimpressed with the compromise but, I mean, it's not like she appeared in her own sweet time, is it? She gave herself two days - two - before getting the full face and heels on.

Then there was the hoo-ha about her having a home birth at Frogmore Cottage. Then the barely concealed disgruntlement on learning the royal household had managed to sneak the Duchess of Sussex out to a hospital without informing the media she was in labour.

Rumour has it Meghan gave birth in the Portland Hospital where a basic birth package costs £15,000 and where Champagne and lobster is served to new mothers. Allegedly there are such things as four poster cots provided.

In the village of Nyandehun Besiema there is no running water or electricity. Women who have the luxury of arriving at the health centre in time from surrounding villages - whether on bike or on foot or carried in a hammock - will be taken into a structure built as others in the village are: a wooden frame covered with dried mud. There is barely enough room inside for the labouring woman and a nurse.

There will be mosquitoes, it will be dark, there will be no surgeon on call should something go wrong.

And am I saying anything we don't know? Of course not. Of course some people are supping Champagne while others don't have access to running water. We know about structural inequality driven by political systems that introduce protectionist trade tariffs, we know about exploited oil and mineral reserves, we know about crippling international debts.

We also know, from February's stooshie about Stacey Dooley's trip to Uganda, that interference by "white saviours" is outdated, offensive and charity at the expense of dignity. With Christian Aid it was impressive to see how determined the charity is to work with and enable local partners and then, in turn, how those local partners enable villages to help themselves. But perhaps impressive is the wrong word. Rather, this is just exactly as it should be.

One of the improvements being made is in trying to tackle rigid gender roles that mean girls are far less likely to be educated than boys; that mean women take on the bulk of the domestic sphere; and which allows lack of access to contraception, barriers to healthcare and the prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation.

I took my Western feminist ideals to Sierra Leone with me and they were given a shake.

The media has long been guilty of dividing Africa into two stereotypes: corrupt rich hustlers and destitute, helpless villagers. The little bit of Africa I saw, the tiny portion, showed entrepreneurial, motivated people engaging with change.

In Nyandehun Besiema the head of the youth group, 23-year-old Lamin Kpaka, is determined his children will be educated. In Gbomukor village, 17-year-old Nurse Kannie Kamara wants to go back to school and wants her one-month-old daughter Betty Tucker to also have the advantage of education.

If you care about the royal baby because of who his parents are then fair enough but he doesn't need your care. Think instead of women in labour birled on the back of a motorbike to an uncertain outcome and maybe put your hand in your pocket for them.