Call The Midwife

[Homethroughthepuddles]

Surprised there's no thread on this. Did anyone watch it last night or has the series reached its natural end and is no longer attracting viewers?

For those disscusing the abortion storyline, you might find this helpful as to attitudes at the time... it's a piece Jennifer Worth wrote for The Guardian in 2005 on the release of the film Vera Drake...
www.theguardian.com/film/2005/jan/06/health.healthandwellbeing

Jennifer Worth herself said that abortion is a medical issue, not a moral one. Women will always seek out abortions so there is a duty to provide them with access to safe and clean facilities to do so.

Thanks for that link Pebble - it makes rather grim reading, but answers many of the questions posed on here.

I don't agree CTM massively backreads morality. Medical professionals saw first hand the suffering caused by endless unwanted pregnancies and backstreet abortions. I actually think you'd be surprised how judgemental modern day doctors and nurses are towards abortion, I suppose because reliable contraception is so freely available and people are better educated about it.

I've just watched it. Good storylines this week.

But I was more that we had Trixie's hairdryer but in blue. Right up to me being in my late teens (1980s). I can still smell it!

Anyone who doesn’t approve of abortion needs to read that article

You can never ban abortion, only safe abortion can be banned

I think a woman could be prosecuted for having an illegal prosecution so therefore they'd be afraid to seek medical help when things went wrong.

This week was hard watching, not much light and shade. The abortion stories are always harrowing and I agree with the poster who said it seems like they are building to something.

I also thought Dr Turners ‘no’ was a refreshing change to Dr ‘I can cure anyone’ that we usually have.

As said upthread, they are Anglican nuns, not Catholics. Still not sure they would be quite so open-minded and sympathetic as they are at Nonnatus, though.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting for a minute that the doctors/nuns SHOULD be condemnatory, just that at the time I think many would have been.

You only have to look at all the stories about unmarried mothers and babies and the attitude of staff on maternity wards on our mother's /grandmother's era to realise that things have changed massively.
In neither of the abortion stories we ahve had have the police really been involved, but they would have been and they would have been much tougher than our lovely local sargeant

I’ve been watching the early series over the last few days and it made me wonder, is there anything like these nuns anymore?

Do nuns even exist in the uk? I’ve never seen one. I’m guessing if they do, they don’t do nursing anymore though

Do nuns even exist in the uk? I’ve never seen one.

Really?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32417296

Do nuns even exist in the uk? I’ve never seen one.

They're not like baby pigeons

Their numbers are dwindling, I imagine, but yes, there are nuns in the UK and it's not that long since many Catholic schools were run by nuns.

Many modern nuns don't wear the full blakc and white uniform. So youmay see someone in an ordinary (if plain) skirt and jumoer and a headscarf, and they are a nun.
Many also do ordinary jobs out of their community too, teaching, working with homeless etc

Wow I never knew!

And really no never seen one. Have seen a baby pigeon though

This episode felt rather close to home . My mother had toxaemia with her first pregnancy and was in labour on Coronation Day 1953 while the rest of the country was celebrating . The baby,a boy,lived for three days.She never really talked about it as the prevailing attitude in those days was to just get over it and have another baby and pretend it never happened . My sister arrived a year later and then me a year after that . A relative of mine had a baby with cerebral palsy in the sixties . Her hospital doctor gave her this news with the words "he's spastic" and she was advised to go and have another baby asap. Thank heavens empathy and compassion in the medical profession have improved since those days

Estrelizia that is so sad, your poor mum. My auntie gave birth to a stillborn baby at home in the 1940s, and the doctor wrapped the baby in newspaper and told her husband to put it in the dustbin. He said it would be better for my auntie if they never mentioned the baby again. Many years later my uncle told her he could never forget standing sobbing over the dustbin, and had been haunted by it all his life.

Clawdy that’s terrible, how cruel for the doctor to say that, surely the wee one could have been buried or cremated?

What harrowing stories pp are sharing, it really makes you think about what countless women had to go through, and be grateful that times have moved on.

Oh Clawdy and Estrelizia

My Granny was having babies in 1940s.
She had my Dad - healthy
She then had triplets. They were taken away, she never saw them they all died. We assumed they died straight away, but years later she told my that the doctor told her she shouldn't see them as she would be too distressed. After she died, we foudn their death certificates, the last one lived for 10 days! Ten days in a side ward, waiting to die, and she never held him, saw him

Then she had twins, and one was stillborn. She was told to be happy that she had one, and forget the dead one.

That is why I say that I don't think CTM has it right with the empathy and compassion. I know it is just a show, but there was a lot of - stiff upper lip and get on with it around, even in the 1960s

and again - late 1960s/early 1970s
My mum went ot the docter 4 times with haevy bleeding, she had basically been bleeding non stop for about 3 months, heavily. She had 3 small children and was so unwell she coudl hardly get to the doctors.
The (male) GP sent her away and told her to stop fussing.
Then the last time there happened to be a woman GP on, young, just out of training. She took one look at my mum and called an ambulance. (and was furious with her colleague) Her iron was so low that they gave her blood transfusions. She was in hospital for a week. Then they sorted out what was causing the bleeding.

Sadly that sort of thing still happens. Far too many GPs dismiss 'women's problems'.

But so many heartbreaking stories on here of baby loss, and at least that is handled so much better now. The poor families.

Oh Steppe, that is heartbreaking. 10 days!
There was one story where a baby was left exposed to die wasn’t there.