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Programme Ten
Why will the doctor see you now?
The intervention of medicine in births is a recent development. How and why has childbirth become a medical procedure?
A programme-by-programme guide for the documentary series Desperate Midwives, about the midwives who work at Derby City General hospital.
Life on the labour ward of Derby City General Hospital can be frantic, but some midwives wouldn’t miss it for the world. Despite the blood and the tears, and the dangers of childbirth, delivering babies is one of the most rewarding jobs of all.
Honduran-born midwife Liz has been posted out to the community to look after mums, both ante- and post-natally. For someone who thrives on adrenaline and the buzz of the labour ward this is a difficult change and she misses the labour ward so much she asks for extra shifts. Her extra shifts are harder than she bargained for - with mums simultaneously birthing, and a difficult c-section where a mum cries out in agony as an ovarian cist is discovered and then removed. But it’s all in a day’s work for Liz…
Meanwhile, midwife Michelle dislikes working in hospitals and has become an independent midwife. She offers private one-to-one care, with a distinctly holistic slant, to any expectant mums who want to pay for the service. For hippy mum Ruth this means a magical home water-birth to the strains of Fats Waller. She’s had a bad experience at the hospital and wants a perfect home-birth for her fifth delivery. She employs Michelle, hires a birthing pool and dances to jazz whilst in labour – it’s a very different delivery to those on the labour ward!
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Content last updated: 16/05/2005
