Programme about pregnancy BBC2 9pm

[CoffeeAndOranges]

It's one of those Michael Mosley Horizon programmes, he's going to be talking about the journey of pregnancy and what happens from conception onwards. The article on the BBC website had him going around the world talking to people from different cultures too, so not just from a British perspective.

Could be interesting - anyone else going to be watching?

Ooh I might watch. Thanks for pointing it out

I'm watching. I know it's all science (i.e. Truth!) but already massively feeling pressure/guilt over my diet at the time of conception and the time of year I conceived!
Also, quads. Wow. I was exhausted just watching.

I thought it was great. I cried when they showed the tiny baby having heart surgery. Poor wee mite, so relieved she was fine in the end.

Quads, yes indeed! That must have been a shock.

Those quads were amazing! And so alike! Bet their parents have struggled to tell them apart at times.

I thought it was a fascinating programme and it was interesting to see the birth story from the perspective of those people who have 'glitches' in the usual process of reproduction.

Adored the family with 6 fingered hands - what a fantastic bunch of people, celebrating their differences with such joy!

I was very glad that I was eating pretty healthily around the time I conceived though, although I suspect he had to go to somewhere with the extreme of the diet that they had in the African country (can't recall where it was) to see the link between eating free veg and life expectancy (I expect we can get plenty of the required nutrients from our general diet).

Will be interesting to see what happens next week.

Agreed on all points! The US model was inspirational too.

I'm 7 1/2 weeks at the moment and tbh I wish I hadn't seen it! I know it makes sense to use showing the mistake/freak occurrences to show the norm but now I'm paranoid about all sorts of rare things I'd never even considered before.

Actually Betty I think at 7 weeks I would also have been a bit paranoid watching it - too easy to think of all the 'what ifs'.

At 30 weeks with 2 normal scans under my belt I guess I can enjoy it a bit more.

Congrats and I'm sure all will be fine!

Just caught up with the second programme, also excellent. Looking forward to part 3 on Monday.

Anyone interested in this might also like this radio programme, which I found via podcasts last year and though was absolutely great

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0137z06

Thanks, magnificat, will listen to that too. Third and final TV programme tonight, 9pm. Looking forward to it.

CoffeeAndOranges I think if you spoke to the guy behind the nutritional/seasonal research in The Gambia, Andrew Prentice, he might have a few things to say about how modern/"normal" British diets are almost certainly not as healthy as the diet in the rainy season in The Gambia. That said, we have access to supplementation in cases where deficiencies are marked, and we also don't have the protein deficiency/ general malnutrition of the dry season there.

His opinions on what college food in Cambridge used to be like were quite worth hearing

BettyBi0 I'm 5 weeks - I understand the worry - but do think of just how many babies are born in your local hospital every day. Multiply that by the number of hospitals in the country (and that's ignoring all the homebirths etc). How many of those kids have ectodermal dysplasia, polydactyly, or an igf-2 mutation? Seriously, not many...

As I wittered on about toxoplasma antibodies my GP said to me today (first antenatal booking-in appointment) "you're going to have to get used to thinking about relative risk and putting things to one side if they're not likely. You're entering what could be a minefield, but is usually just a really nice experience, with access to westerrn medicine and good nutrition. If it's not likely, it's honestly not likely to happen to you if you have no family history of it and you don't know anyone else it's happened to."

Wise words there, magnificat! Good luck - is this your first?

Probably worth pointing out that the program is more about human development and genetics from conception onwards as opposed to pregnancy as an experience.

Also worth saying it looks at a lot of very rare and unique, allbeit facinating, cases so may not be the best watch for those who find themselves worrying too much!

I found it quite interesting and well presented, however, I was actually disappointed that they failed to mention how many pregnancies do not have happy endings.
If you are making a scientific programme about the wonders and miracles of pregnancy and foetal development, it should not be swept under the carpet that 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in miscarriage, and that still births do happen.
They only showed the happy outcomes, making it very biased. You either present all the facts, or you don't bother making such a programme.

However, I have not yet seen the other episodes, and I'm the first to admit that after 4 miscarriages, this is a sensitive topic for me.

cloudjumper, I've been watching (missed tonight's as was in the bath but will catch up on iPlayer) and completely agree with your points.
Even just a simple mention that sadly miscarriages do in fact exist, and when things go wrong most often the baby does not survive. Instead the focus was on uplifting stories of genetic miracles.
I've suffered three mcs and don't want to all be doom and gloom about it, but I do find it unbalanced when the fact is ignored. And the knock on effect is that you feel so isolated when a miscarriage happens to you as society still pretty much denies it's a common issue.

Keep in mind that this stuff is just sciencey-flavoured fluff though, rather than an actual science documentary. The great advantage of presenting fluff is that you can present a nice narrative without having any pretence of presenting a reasonable or thorough overview of a topic. The demise of content in TV is a bit sad - just think how much Jacob Bronowski or Jonathan Miller packed into an hour compared to this kind of stuff. I haven't seen the Robert Winston thing from about 10-15 years ago but I suspect that would be somewhat less content-free than this nice unchallenging hour of posho Michael Mosley repeating himself...

This starts from someone in the production team (quite possibly Mosley?) having extremely detailed knowledge (e.g. how we know when & how fingers are formed, and that sonic hedgehog is responsible for the six- fingered family), but it presents basically none of the actual scientific knowledge, just the human consequences. That the woman with ectodermal dysplasia has had a career as a model is a great thing, but there was way too much footage of her walking around and looking soulfully at the view - and just the one sentence (paraphrasing) "she has ectodermal dysplasia which means her hair, teeth and skin don't grow properly" - and they didn't explain the fact she has one of several possible alleles/mutations of several possible genes that will all lead to (roughly) the same outcome, just said "you're very unique, you have your own mutation". GAH! GIVE US SOME ACTUAL EXPLANATION INSTEAD OF THIS INTELLECUAL CANDYFLOSS!

Now if Adam Rutherford were presenting it we might have a chance of knowing what's actually going on...

I can't find this on iplayer and would love to see it. Is it still on there?

Here it is, twolittleboys.

magnificat, I'm sure if you have a background in science it must all seem like noddy stuff but I thought it was several notches above what Horizon normally does these days. Not nearly as much recapping every five minutes and there were several things I learned that I had no idea about before. Maybe my expectations have dropped too much!

Is it relevant that Michael Mosley is a posho, btw? I think he's an excellent presenter. They do put Brian Cox on a lot for balance...

It's probably not relevant at all really. I just find him extremely smug and he's the target of my ire because his programs are just so lacking in content when they don't have to be!

For something that I think is really well presented at a level that most people can understand, but also at a level that scientists don't find extremely annoying for not explaining anything at all, try Adam Rutherford on cells...

(NB Rutherford is probably just as posh as Mosley, but nowhere near as annoying!)

(btw also can't stand Brian Cox for his much worse absence of content. In comparison Mosley actually tells you stuff - Cox just seems to live in a 1970s slightly trippy music video. Those who know him in real life say he is like that in real life too... )