The Midwives: Tonight BBC1 9pm

[TaggieMandevilleBlack]

Anyone planning to see if BBC can be better for the blood pressure than OBEM?

That poor dad Beautiful beautiful baby

do they,i never noticed,

he'll be ok, wont he??

thekidsrule
I know the hospital where I had DD and this I'll be having this baby in has them machines but the fold back over so it looks like a cupboard.

Agree tango. Someone who takes charge when I'm scared sounds perfect to me.

Aw, what a lovely lady. :(

Some keep them in the corridor outside, especially if it's a low risk room.

I've warmed a little to the blonde woman actually i fess up...she does seem like she knows what she's doing when she's actually doing the business! Maybe it's just her front desk skills that are lacking!

imnothome,thats probably why i never noticed,ta

I'll not be watching that again!

I found that fascinating, much better than OBEM actually.

Does anyone know if it is back on next week?

i thought it better than OBEM

When i had my DD, she was a big baby (9 pounds 9 oz!) - i had to go in the big delivery room. They actually stocked up the ressuss table while i was labouring, calling things out, there was a bible on the bedside table. DP and I were terrified :( Then the doctor came because DDs heart rate was slowing, i begged for a ceaser - instead of saying the truth "there is no need you will deliver soon" fuckwit doctor said "its too late" then they decided on forceps delivery - but couldnt find the right stirrups - so i lost my temper, which was probably the best thing i could have done, pushed like fuck and had my baby - the midwife said, "oh, look, the baby's coming" FFS!!! This program reminded me of that actually.

I thought it was better than OBEM aswel. OBEM seemed to be getting "old" now.

Just wanted to say well done BBC for showing a frank and honest view of life on as they said one of the busiest maternity units in the country. Plus it is on next week featuring student midwives. This program is from the midwives point of view not the families as is the focus of obem and they showed a normal birth and showed active births unlike obem where they just seem to show people sitting on the beds for the whole labour.

Actually had a lot of respect for the blonde one at the end, so glad all the LO's were ok!

thing is, these programmes only show when things go ok in the end.
and sadly thats not real life

we do lose 17 babies every single day in the uk, due to stillbirths and neonatal deaths

so i find these programmes really fake

God almighty, the blonde mw was horrible! All that smug 'I know better than you, been doing it for years, now run along home dear and labour at home because you aren't really in labour at all' attitude!!!! Shocking! Can you imagine if the poor woman really did go home, she'd have been giving birth in the car ffs! She was effectively forced to labour with no pain killers because she wasn't believed. Nice!

whiteandyellow I get what you are saying but even if you had orginally given permission for them to film you and whilst filming your baby died would you want it shown on national tv. I don't think so, therefore perhaps if they did film someone whose baby did die then they would not give there permission for that film to then be shown. And they did talk about babies dying on the prpgram so I think it was more real than obem

I really hope i was a kinder and more compassionate when I was practising
I am quite disgusted at their attitude

I've just watched this on iplayer and really enjoyed it - what it does do, quite clearly, is highlight the impact of funding cuts and how the ridiculously tight budgets are forcing midwives to juggle beds and levels of care rather than put women's needs first :(

Just watched this , it definitely doesn't shay away from the bad but in a way the Isn't exploitative.

In the business of labour I would prefer a woman like the blonde she clearly knows whats she's doing, I wouldn't want a nicey MW who is only a bit older than me.

but everyones different.

I would want a midwife who took me seriously when I said I was in pain and didn't send me away to take 2 paracetamol when I was in labour and asking for help

Short haired blonde lady was one of my midwives last year when I was in St Mary's - she is lovely, although that maybe didn't come across in programme so much when she was manning the triage desk. I had loads of complications and she was totally unflappable, I quite liked being told a spade is a spade and being told what the situation was, even when it's not what you want to hear.

It is such a busy place, but it's not the midwives fault that they are having to manage with insufficient resources.

Is it a series or was it just a one-off?