Programme One
From excruciating pain one minute to ecstatic smiles the next, midwives see it all, undertaking one of hardest yet most rewarding jobs of all. Gaining unique access to the labour ward of Derby City General Hospital, BBC THREE shows the reality of childbirth from the perspective of those who must deliver it in Desperate Midwives. Every mother wishes for a perfect birth but with hormones and emotions running high it’s the midwives job to take charge and a hard labour can be hard work.

Derby City General Hospital’s midwife co-ordinator Trudy has her work cut out. She has got to manage a busy shift with too many mums and not enough midwives. One of the mums on the ward is particularly demanding, and, not happy to wait for her labour to kick in, insists on a Caesarean section. The doctors agree but the midwives don’t, and it’s a battle of wills.

The shift is so hectic that Trudy has to step in and deliver another of the babies herself. It’s not something she does that often but is something she still relishes. “That was wonderful” she says after delivering young mum Emma’s baby. “It gets no less important, even after 20 years…still, every birth is just so special”.

In Derby one in 25 mums choose to have a homebirth - twice the national average. For Community midwife Shirley Ann, “there’s nothing like it…it’s the icing on the cake for me personally as a midwife. It’s the thing I like to do the most”. She’s looking after a mum determined to have her baby at home, even after suffering a bleed and against the advice of the consultants. It puts Shirley Ann in a difficult position, but she stands by her mum and delivers at home. Unfortunately, things start to go dangerously wrong.

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Content last updated: 16/05/2005

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