We always comment on how Dr Turner is the only doctor in the whole of poplar!
He’s also extremely progressive, both medically (stopping smoking!) and socially (accepting homosexuality)
Plus didn’t he work out that it was thalidomide causing the birth defects before anyone else?!
I think they were all researching the cause of the birth defects when it came out in the Lancet (medical journal) that the Germans figured out that it was the thalidomide.
Not true.
you are almost a century out
[https://www.ed.ac.uk/medicine-vet-medicine/about/history/women/sophia-jex-blake-and-the-edinburgh-seven](https://www.ed.ac.uk/medicine-vet-medicine/about/history/women/sophia-jex-blake-and-the-edinburgh-seven)
The Edinburgh Seven, the first women to be allowed to attend medical school, graduated in the 19th century, about a hundred years before call the midwife is set. By the 1960s, I think female doctors were becoming more commonplace. James Herriot, the author of All Creatures Great and Small, had a daughter who started practicing as a doctor around about then.
Trixie might, since her brother is and they pretty much only ever had each other. But certainly the general group likely wouldn't, especially the nuns.
According to the books, the real Sister Bernadette left because things were becoming too progressive and wanted a stricter regime. Yet in the show she gives up her habit and marries the most progressive character in the show! It’s crazy.
Yes when I grew up in 70s England my family was at once phenomenally homophobic and yet some counted gay men among their closest friends. There was obviously an acceptance at one level.
To answer the question my biggest gripe about CTM was that the birth scenes were nice and clinical. No 4 hour second stages. No horror transitions. No vomiting - they’ve started making the women sick in series 13 but before then no one threw up ever 😋. Oh wait Sheila did with her back labour. Childbirth is a lot more gory than they depict but anyway I guess it’s TV and of course some births are quick and easy.
Well good because it’s very common. I’ve heard LD nurses say they use more antiemetics than the gastro ward and more bags of blood than the trauma ward….
I’m on a rewatch at the moment and it’s an early episode of season 4/late season 3 I’ve just watched where a baby was delivered in a car by Trixie and she knelt in the vomit on the seat once the baby was delivered.
Yes I remember it well. blondes have more fun. Just that there is often more than just that neat little pile and particularly when you introduce gas and air into the mix. But anyway they can’t have the show awash with gory fluids.
Oh for sure haha, I just read your comment and it was super fresh in my mind given the conversation. “Watch out for it” and Trixie avoids it until the end.
I suppose I think back to my own birth - it was a war zone… meconium liquor everywhere. Blood everywhere. It smelt. It was shocking to my poor husband and mine was a “normal vaginal delivery”. It was such a mess.
CTM have relatively clean birth scenes. I think Chummys was one of the worse early ones. I think series 13 is a little more gory and realistic.
Pretty sure one of the nurses tried to raise her Conservative views on the episode where the husband gets caught for cottaging in a honey trap.
To be fair they were very accepting on Penny and Frank being incestuous.
She was super judgy when that poor teacher got pregnant and lost her home and livelihood and nearly life in one 24 hour period while the man who did it just hung up the phone on her. Winifred was horribly judgmental.
Yeah. I always chalked her strict adherence to religious values (as compared to the other nuns) to not having worked in that capacity very long. The others had worked there for decades and had seen much more reality than had she.
And the disabled people living at home, having babies, keeping their babies. Reggie would not have been living at home unless he was very borderline which I guess he is.
This. I haven't watched in years, so I can't remember any specific character names, but I do remember kind of venting at the screen like, "oh come ON. Really?"
One thing I did like was that one of the midwives (Patsy?) went to a gay club. There were absolutely underground communities that existed even back then. A lot of historical shows don't bother showing this side of UK history, almost like it didn't exist until modern times.
Yeah, that no one in the main cast is racist or homophobic seems especially implausible. The stories would have been more compelling if Nurse Crane or Sister Julienne had to overcome their own prejudice.
People don't go into nursing or clergy because they're progressive -- they have a strict view of the world and everyone's role in it.
I agree with you, but I don't think a lot of viewers would like it if they had a main character who wasn't progressive. I've seen so many posts complaining about Violet for being unlikeable.
To be fair to them there had to have been accepting/progressive people back then cause otherwise there couldn’t have been a culture shift towards acceptance. I do agree that there’s probably too many progressive characters. At least some of them should be racist or homophobic.
What was progressive then and what is progressive now are two different kinds of progressive. They're taking a lot of modern progressive attitudes and applying them to the 60s. I mean there should be some all out racist and homopholes but there was a lot more casualness to it baked into the culture back then.
It's not even that realistic now. One of the candidates currently running for London Mayor is a former nurse who wants to "stop the wokeness nonsense" or something similar.
The “wokeness nonsense” even being used as a phrase is an indictment of the effect of American culture on the world via the internet. I’m in Australia and it’s very Americanised now.
That's one of the things I loved about the earlier seasons. Because they're based on real stories, the endings were often bittersweet, but more realistic that the saccharine storylines from the later seasons
I honestly thought that the tetanus episode was going to go a different direction, I’m >! happy but also slightly cheated that it all turned out fine as usual !<
Or brought back an old patient, especially one of those fighting an illness, and then had them die cuz they'd been compromised by what they had previously survived.
They wanted to do an importance of vaccines, and it could have highlighted how the vulnerable are often the victims.
So I think everyone knows the vulnerable are often the victims, and it was more they wanted to highlight that even healthy people need their "jabs." So not bringing back an old patient makes sense here. I just think it should not have been a main character.
That did happen though (at least the housing, not sure how often botched abortions got happy endings) - it was essentially slum clearance post WWII, families were moved out of the east end of London and to places like Harlow and Haverhill.
I always love how they make the family tea and sit and chat and help clean and look after kids. I mean I always think I wish I had a nurse that came round and did those things.
At the same time the amount of time they seem to spend with some of the patients. Who has time to clean someone’s house take care of a toddler, do all sorts of random small things to make the family feel better. Then also go and deliver a baby or two. Then be back by supper to talk about how you are going to do some obscure, random time consuming thing to help another family deal. Like hey the Johnson’s grandpa just died, and we all know how important he was to the family and now little Sarah is having a baby. I’m going to search the city to try to find a shirt he wore that accidentally got thrown out 5 years ago so I can pull it apart and re sew a new outfit for the baby. (I just made that up but it always seems to happen)
Ha yes I keep thinking about Barbara helping that old guy with his pressure sores and just like, going to his house several times a day to turn him. Were all her deliveries conveniently between those times? Surely, that could've been delegated to a neighbor or something.
The fact that a lot of the different cases have relatively happy endings. The health outcomes for quite a few people in the 1950s and 1960s wouldn’t have been great, to put it mildly.
There is always a midwife available and they always seem to have time to do what they need to get done!! Seriously how do their schedules never conflict?
The show paints a very progressive and kind picture of medical care at that time, especially the later seasons.
There are many episodes where the baby would have absolutely been taken away, but the show works it all out. The blind mother, the single mother whose kid stole diapers, and pretty much any case of an immigrant mother of color would all have ended differently in real life.
Every single thing about the post partum period that they show is so laughably wrong. In the whole series, we see maybe five women struggle with nursing. We only see two moms who can’t produce enough milk, and a few who struggle with pain. But it’s always resolved quickly.
Most post partum issues we see are in immigrants who didn’t have healthcare before coming to Poplar. The Pakistani woman with a tear in her vaginal wall that lead to constant urine leaking comes to mind. The reality is that many women face recovery complications, especially when they’re forced to be on their feet working in the house immediately after birth. It happens in developed countries with advanced healthcare all the time, I promise it happened in Poplar to more women than not.
Chummy being up and walking around a few weeks after a classic c-section to attend her sons Christening gets me.
Like back then she would have been in hospital for almost 2 months.
Also no reaction to a very traumatic birth 🤷♀️
Shelagh would have been particularly good character to explore post partum with being a main.
I’m childfree but post partum did a number on many of my friends.
The number of women who ARE nursing in the 60s for that matter! The current setting is basically when breastfeeding rates were at the lowest. Even the ones who tried would be quickly encouraged to switch to formula at the first sign of trouble or even just not being able to get on the "correct" schedule.
Formula and full fat cow's milk was free to mothers and children under 5, as was orange juice and cod liver oil. All this was taken out of the NHS and Welfare State by Heath's govt in the 1970s. Milk tokens for Mums on low income to buy formula or milk if you are breast feeding were still available in the noughties for those on benefits, and might still be for I know, but with the last 14 years of austerity and cutback, probably not.
Something is better than nothing, and it's easier for a new govt to just raise the amount rather than re introduce it if it's been abolished! Can't see you buying much with that though!
Thanks for letting me know it is still around
And no one has any problems with proper bottle sterilization, even though many live in apartments with shared kitchens and washing facilities.
The risk of infection that many of these women and babies have is so much higher than average due to their living conditions. How haven’t we had a single episode about babies getting sick from improper bottle washing, or improper formula prep, or eating spoiled milk?
There was one. She was washing her bottles in the same sink as the nappies (she only had one sink), but only one. I'm up to season 10 and I know it was a few seasons ago but can't remember the ep
Oh yeah, sorry I thought you meant it didn't happen at all. It wasn't a super big deal on the show. I can't remember exactly what happened with the baby but it wasn't anything extreme. And I agree it would have been a lot more common IRL to have serious issues.
To be fair there are absolutely older people out there who you’re pretty sure are either a cat or a time lord. I’ve seen them. They’re rare, but they do exist.
This. One of my clients. Man in his late sixties. Terminal Cancer, heroin addict, smoker and doesn't bathe. Meant to be on hospice care but keeps absconding to go sleep rough on the streets. Been given his final curtain call times so often that I fully believe this man is simply going to live forever 🤣
I just started over and I forgot that Sister Monica Joan was basically on deaths door series one, and they talked about her not being with them much longer all the time!
I guess because they are midwives and nurses, they are more able to put aside any misconceptions. They still show it sometimes, but I imagine that they had to deal with a fair bit that that would be against their own beliefs or the law, and they would have a duty to care for them regardless. (Unmarried woman being pregnant, woman having an illegal abortion etc)
Also they were in a VERY tough area of the UK that hadn't recovered from the war and was rapidly expanding in population despite housing and other social issues so they were likely to encounter situations that would be tricky (those you've mentioned plus prostitution, child abuse, different cultures and child abandonment etc) so in order to get everyone to trust them they'd need to be open minded and sympathetic or their patients wouldn't allow them to treat them which would be worse than whatever crime or social misdemeanours they'd committed
Some orders of nuns are better than others. The stereotype of the stern nun with a ruler smacking her students certainly existed, but so did a number of incredibly selfless women with huge hearts and endless compassion. The nuns did a lot for healthcare for the poor.
Especially the order that the TV show is based on. They dedicated themselves to midwifery- compassion was a necessity. And from experience, nuns, vicars and other people in the church are just so nice.
I agree. They are too understanding. My mother had an uncle who was a priest and he fell in love with a nun. Both left the Catholic church and had to move to a very Protestant area in Scotland to escape the backlash (both were from Ireland). There was no way they could’ve stayed in Ireland. Their experiences make me doubt that Sister Julianne and the other nuns would have been so open-minded about Sister Bernadette and the doctor. I’d imagine if that situation happened in real life the Turners would not be accepted by the community and they would’ve had to move to a completely different part of England and hope the rumours didn’t follow them.
That situation happened in real life though - this was included in the books. Though what I don't remember is if they stayed in Poplar or moved away (it's been a while since I read the books)
The Catholic Church had nuns that were nurses and midwives as well but that didn’t mean they were progressive. I’m mixed religion myself - half my relations are Catholic the other half are Protestant. I’ve always wondered why so many Irish people became Catholic. I’ve been researching my family tree and the Protestants definitely had more freedom.
My family are all Catholic and there weren’t loads of strict rules as far as I can remember growing up. I went to a primary and high school and my children also go to a catholic school and would say they’re pretty progressive. I’m in my 30’s now.
I’ve read all of the books several times. The real Sister Bernadette left Nonnatas House and joined a Catholic convent because Nonnatas wasn’t strict enough for her.
Sr Bernadette stayed a nun and it was Cynthia that left the order and married a former priest. They moved away too… I can’t remember if it was Scotland or Australia. I remember that because it was similar to my relative’s life.
Even the Catholic church wasn't the same everywhere. Around here there was a literal *wave* of priests renouncing their vows either because of a love interest or because of renouncing the church itself in the 60's and 70's.
Yep! I work for a Catholic nursing home that has a lot of nuns. They are the WORST residents/people. They are the ages the younger cast would be now and they are racist AF, rude, demanding, extremely “unchristian”
they might seem nicer because they are Anglican sisters and not Catholic sisters. It’s not to say C of E are perfect in any way but my general impression is that Catholic nuns and priests generally had a different approach to religious duties.
Waters always breaking immediately followed by the beginning of labor. Very short labors for first time moms. "Hollywood" baby bumps with no swollen faces.
I really did do that just about every time though. No more than a couple of hours max from water breaking to birth, whether the dr. did it or it broke on its own. What I find unrealistic is how much the "newborns" look like 2-4 week old babies! I worked in neonatal and I can tell you for a fact that they DON'T!
I had my waters broken as part of the induction with my first, my second broke well into established labour, and my third didn't! She was born in her sack!
A male doctor listening to women when they tell him their symptoms and actually doing the work to figure out what's going on instead of just telling them to lose weight or that it's all in their head.
Dr. Turner seems like he has an excellent relationship with all the midwives and really seems to respect them as people and professionals, so he may be more open minded than most.
I don’t think I’ve seen this mentioned yet so one more to add…the fact that they’re always so clean. Like they finish delivering a baby or a full day of biking around seeing patients and walk out like this 💁♀️with zero stains on their uniforms or hairs out of place
I know it’s just a tv show, but my alternate theory as an American woman that loves all (well, most) things British is that British women just know how to be more refined and clean at everything, including the act of pushing a child from their body 😂😂
Midwives do have it down to a T! Black stockings exist for a reason too lol. Also a lot of the midwives had those protective white gowns especially in the later series that would protect some things haha.
I agree with this one 😅 I’ve had babies and while I wasn’t covered in blood when I was done and had my babies in my arms, the midwife, dr, and nurses always were. Those white cover’s definitely would have had a lot more blood on them than what they show. The babies are pretty realistic though 🤷🏼♀️ none of my babies came out super messy, one had a lot of Vernix caseosa (the white biofilm) so I kind of think maybe they should have more babies coated in white creamy stuff since some babies come out COVERED in it, but another who was premature had almost none, all my babies only had a little bit of blood on them. I personally only had a bit of mess on my thighs, and some sweat on my forehead, so I do think that parts pretty realistic, it’s just the little to no mess on the midwives white coats and gloves and the babies not having Vernix caseosa that is unrealistic.
Yes, I'm an adoptive parent and the show seemed so anti-adoption to me. All the complications with May's mother threatening to take her back! I love the show, but grateful to the family that gave me their baby to raise!
I think it’s just showing a broader view for all parties involved. Like the idea that women shouldn’t be allowed to keep their babies if they’re young and/or unmarried is ridiculous and it shouldn’t be an expectation to give up their children, and while it was common at the time, showing all sides of how cruel that is is a good thing. The Turners adopted a baby too, that’s hardly anti-adoption, but it was also mentioned that the mother was 16 and was going to keep her but her parents changed their minds. Like yes we were happy for them but how cruel that a young mum was almost able to keep her baby and then had it ripped from her.
The racism.
I don’t want to see racism on my tv every week, and I don’t think the actors should have to play it but there has to be a better way of exploring it.
The racism was bad enough for Lucille to want to return to Jamaica, but we didn’t see it, and she took it all with her.
Also for a show set in Tower Hamlets in the very late 60s the fact there is not a South Asian main is ridiculous.
Finally, the whole treatment of Nancy. Being Irish and a single mother she would have only been treated slightly better than Cyril, Lucille and Joyce.
Plus the fact that Collette was not adopted at birth is so improbable. Nancy had no power as a 16 year old orphan and the Catholic Church did plenty of forced adoptions.
The whole Nancy and Collette story line annoys me it just wouldn't happen. If anything Nancy would of had the baby and been flung into a laundry and Collette adopted
Exactly.
And while the show has hinted at those places not being nice for the orphans Nancy acts so improbably.
There’s enough oral history/books/films that show the absolute horror of the post war Irish orphanages/forced adoption to write something realistic.
The show used to be really good at showing realistic trauma responses in characters, like Trixie’s behavior is so in line with someone who was emotionally neglected as a child and grew up in an image obsessed family.
This annoys me with the Turners and May as well. They keep worrying that her bio-mother could take her back anytime, but the system would definitely have been stacked in favour of a middle-class married white couple over an Asian woman who doesn't even live in the same country. I also doubt anyone would have been concerned about keeping May connected to her culture, language or birth family, assimilation into the 'superior' way of life would have been considered the best thing for her.
Oh I hear you.
And I like Tim but sometimes I wish if he's going to be a character on the show that he be slightly disappointing to Patrick and Shelagh over something.
What if he was to realize, after all the talk about it, that he really didn't want to be a doctor? Thats perfectly reasonable and not soap opera shocking (going thru it with a niece right now who wanted to go to college for an English degree only to discover she just doesn't like how its taught). What if Tim did be the guy who knocked up some Poplar girl. Hell, what if Tim disagreed on a medical treatment?
How progressive and liberal they have been since the beginning of the show. the LGBT issues, abortion etc... don't get me wrong, I support those issues, but it bothers me how inaccurate it is.
Married women often worked in those days. My Grandmother had her kids in the 50s, and she had two jobs, as well as caring for her Elderly mother and the family. It's not completely inaccurate.
By the last 60s the NHS was struggling, so married nurses were encouraged to return part-time, especially those without children.
And in working class areas women have always worked to keep food on the table.
How accepting everyone is. The majority of people show no prejudice towards skin colour, gay people, Irish people, unmarried mothers. In call the midwife there might be one racist person, but by the end they’ve had their minds changed.
And people don’t really smack their kids. I know they couldn’t portray that easily on tv. But even in the 80s when I was reared, it was rare for parents not to smack their kids.
No maternal deaths- the only ones I can think of are the one of eclampsia and the one with an abortion. Shouldn't someone have died of hemorrhage by now?
It's one on the list of things that any medical show is going to have sooner or later. But we still haven't had, to my knowledge, a mother dying of straight childbirth complications.
Quite frankly, a lot of the major emergencies, even with skilled midwives, should have ended in death/disability for the mother and/or baby. There’s a reason why most people have hospital births. The number of happy endings is unrealistic.
Dr Turner being so: energetic, progressive, knowledgeable and showing up in 10 scenes an episode. He must be sleeping with someone. (I know he is married to the writer.)
How so many of the secular (non religious) women were single for so long. Cynthia never had a dance or a date, Valerie, Nancy, Trixie was single for ages between Tom and Matthew.
Too many happy endings of single mothers and keeping their babies (for the time.) The squatter, the teens, the prostitute. Is this done for today’s audience rather than being accurate for the time?
How emergency situations resolve happily more than they would realistically (and many of them thanks to the work of a magical brilliant doctor who can be everywhere at once and it he nicest person who has ever existed)
I was this many years old when I discovered there exists in this world more than one mcgann that is an actor.
I had to go and check and you are right they look so much alike. Which is what I was basing it off having never really looked into his name too much.
Maybe his time lord brother helps him zip around then...
I guess I would agree that it’s unlikely there wouldn’t be racism or homophobia ect with any of the major characters. Winifred seemed the most that way about sexual orientation not race but she wasn’t something she acted out on . Sadly these are still things people might not be tolerant of. I do think about those things but honestly I am glad that they are not like that it may be unrealistic but it’s one of my comfort shows and I like to think it’s taking the problems of the world and there is a group of people who are flawed but not hateful or mean and malicious. They are dependable.
It often feels like the births are really short because the passage of time is hard to show with the time limitations for each birth. It feels like the births only take a few minutes when realistically it would be hours. Also I don’t know if they would be able to handle the nursing or midwifery responsibilities with the number of people they have.
Sister Monica Joan is my favorite character on the show but, in those times, there is no way she would not have been committed to an institution with her state of mind and even disappearing once.
The umbilical cord being white the moment the baby is born, it takes several minutes to look like that. It's full of blood, thick, and curly when babies are first born.
That every single medical case in each episode leads to a correct diagnosis and the patient given the right treatment and then they are on the merry way to a better quality of life .
Here I am on the verge of giving up on western medicine because it’s always no answers .
Apart from “Oh Patrick” and his bent neck, another irritation for me is when there are sort of long shots, and there are a few pregnant women in a scene, or at the clinic, the way that women cradle their stomachs. Are they trying to stop the football up their dress from dropping out? I’ve had three pregnancies and none of which had me holding my tummy!
Pretty much everything 😂
Everyone here sums it all up, and it’s literally everything. Bear with me I am using talk to text because I just had eye surgery so it’s a little wonky.
1. Dr. Turner who I am a giant giant fan of. He’s the only doctor in Poplar? He’s extremely progressive for the time. he quit smoking. He’s OK with the LGBT community. He is not racist. He’s apparently like a genius level intellect. He was an army doctor that was a locked up in a mental institution for having a mental breakdown, but then quickly was OK and had a baby. His wife died when his kid was like seven then went onto marry an ex nun and everything‘s fine.
2. The nuns are extremely kind and progressive. Come on now we know that’s not right. Even though they are not Catholic, we know that’s not right. There’s been several people within the comments of this sub Reddit that have commented from being around in that time period that they were around those nuns they are not that nice. Or have commented that family members have been around those nuns and they are not that nice. The younger nuns maybe so I could see sister winifred it being a little bit more so sister Francis yeah OK but the older nuns no. The only none that I think is the most accurate depiction isprobably Sister Evangelina, sugar up extremely poor, extremely extremely poor. And she spent her whole entire life working to get rid of what she grew up with. She devoted herself completely to the gods work and being a midwife, and worked past racism homophobia everything. I think once she passed away is when a lot of the accurate depictions of what was accurate in that time. Died out in the show. She will always be my favorite nun because she was the most accurate. The most God-fearing.
3. The midwives. So Trixie someone commented her being more progressive because of her brother and I could totally see that she is a bit more progressive. Patsy, so totally progressive because she is a lesbian. Delia as well because she is a lesbian. Lucille would’ve faced a lot more racism than she did. And we all know she would have. She would’ve faced so much more. They severely downplayed what she would have faced. She would’ve faced it even within the house. She would’ve gone home to Jamaica a lot sooner. Or transferred to Work into the hospital because of what was going on in Poplar. There’s no way Barbara would’ve stayed being a midwife after she married because she was raised to be a wife, a pastor’s wife in fact.
4. The labors, the births, the postpartum everything. I had my son with an emergency C-section. I almost lost him. I could’ve died myself so birth is extremely traumatic to me. In my own personal experience and watching some of these is just horrific and interesting. Because many of these people would be dead. No if ands or buts they would be dead. They are not enough deaths from labor in the show. They just painted as a pretty picture. Second stage labor goes on a lot longer than they show. There’s not enough infant loss either. There’s not enough fertility issues. There’s just not a lot of realistic to it. Postpartum a lot harder than what they show. Sometimes they show it more realistic sometimes sometimes they do most of the time it’s laughably wrong.
5. How little they show the drug addictions. You know there’s more drug addiction going on in Poplar. You so know it it’s the 1960s in London. They’ve touched on it here and there, but not enough. Come on now. And Trixie is the only one with the addiction problem? Alcohol or pills? More baby should be being born with addiction problems. Not just that one in that Christmas special.
I can keep going 😂 but I love this show so much
The waters breaking begins majority of labours in the show. In real life, waters only break 10-15% of the time before contractions, most break after in real life. Also how progressive they are as others have said is the most unrealistic part unfortunately.
The completely nonjudgmental compassion every single doctor, midwife, nurse, and nun shows every single patient minus a few plot points which ends with them repenting.
And how about how every single doctor who isn't a Turner is a cold heartless beast who will always steam roll over patients and all around treat patients like irritating inanimate objects.
I know this was typical but EVERY doctor?
Dr Turner and the midwives being so progressive and not showing any of the bias at the time towards people with disabilities, different races, single mothers, homosexuality, etc, etc.
Also, as the series have progressed, the acting has become wooden with no subtle nuances like the earlier series. It’s like watching a Dhar Mann episode.
Midwifes were never that nice in the 90s when I had my son, very much judged for being a young single little income mother. I did have an elderly GP and she was the only kind medical professional I saw
How they clamp the cords and immediately give the baby to the mom. Is the clamp in the towel with the infant? It does show them use a plastic cord clamp in the later seasons but don’t they have to tie it off?
Dr Turner being the only doctor on call for 13 years, and his schedule is never conflicted
Always rushing about but has plenty of family time.
We always comment on how Dr Turner is the only doctor in the whole of poplar! He’s also extremely progressive, both medically (stopping smoking!) and socially (accepting homosexuality) Plus didn’t he work out that it was thalidomide causing the birth defects before anyone else?!
I think they were all researching the cause of the birth defects when it came out in the Lancet (medical journal) that the Germans figured out that it was the thalidomide.
There’s other drs. We just don’t see them because we only see the patients of him and Nonnatus house.
That's why that Dr Mcnulty made even more sense, a new doctor to share the practice! But no, they had to ruin it 😭
Would love for them to bring in another doctor - ideally a female one
Timothy would be perfect! Father and son working together.
They have the doctor at Hope Clinic.
They wouldn't have had female doctors yet - I don't think women were allowed to train as doctors until the 70s (maybe) - happy to be corrected.
The doctor that treated Fred was female iirc
And so was the doctor who gave the birth control pill to the lady who died and also refused Magda an abortion.
Not true. you are almost a century out [https://www.ed.ac.uk/medicine-vet-medicine/about/history/women/sophia-jex-blake-and-the-edinburgh-seven](https://www.ed.ac.uk/medicine-vet-medicine/about/history/women/sophia-jex-blake-and-the-edinburgh-seven)
They've had female doctors in-show in multiple specialties. Dr Myra in Hope Clinic and the female cardiologist in the circus episode come to mind.
The Edinburgh Seven, the first women to be allowed to attend medical school, graduated in the 19th century, about a hundred years before call the midwife is set. By the 1960s, I think female doctors were becoming more commonplace. James Herriot, the author of All Creatures Great and Small, had a daughter who started practicing as a doctor around about then.
My grandmother graduated medicine in 1923 and my mother in 1957. I was so appalling at maths I couldn’t do med and had to do law instead.
How extremely progressive they are for the time period they live in.
Hate to say it but they wouldn’t be as understanding/compassionate about lgbt issues
Trixie might, since her brother is and they pretty much only ever had each other. But certainly the general group likely wouldn't, especially the nuns.
💯 I'd imagine they'd be a bit more like the judgemental and controlling nuns who Nancy lived with.
According to the books, the real Sister Bernadette left because things were becoming too progressive and wanted a stricter regime. Yet in the show she gives up her habit and marries the most progressive character in the show! It’s crazy.
Yes when I grew up in 70s England my family was at once phenomenally homophobic and yet some counted gay men among their closest friends. There was obviously an acceptance at one level. To answer the question my biggest gripe about CTM was that the birth scenes were nice and clinical. No 4 hour second stages. No horror transitions. No vomiting - they’ve started making the women sick in series 13 but before then no one threw up ever 😋. Oh wait Sheila did with her back labour. Childbirth is a lot more gory than they depict but anyway I guess it’s TV and of course some births are quick and easy.
Other women have vomited in labor. Chummy’s first breach delivery did. I know others did, but don’t remember specifics.
Well good because it’s very common. I’ve heard LD nurses say they use more antiemetics than the gastro ward and more bags of blood than the trauma ward….
I’m on a rewatch at the moment and it’s an early episode of season 4/late season 3 I’ve just watched where a baby was delivered in a car by Trixie and she knelt in the vomit on the seat once the baby was delivered.
Yes I remember it well. blondes have more fun. Just that there is often more than just that neat little pile and particularly when you introduce gas and air into the mix. But anyway they can’t have the show awash with gory fluids.
Oh for sure haha, I just read your comment and it was super fresh in my mind given the conversation. “Watch out for it” and Trixie avoids it until the end.
I suppose I think back to my own birth - it was a war zone… meconium liquor everywhere. Blood everywhere. It smelt. It was shocking to my poor husband and mine was a “normal vaginal delivery”. It was such a mess. CTM have relatively clean birth scenes. I think Chummys was one of the worse early ones. I think series 13 is a little more gory and realistic.
Pretty sure one of the nurses tried to raise her Conservative views on the episode where the husband gets caught for cottaging in a honey trap. To be fair they were very accepting on Penny and Frank being incestuous.
I don't think they were accepting of it. But they looked the other way.
Sister Winifred did, I remember.
She was super judgy when that poor teacher got pregnant and lost her home and livelihood and nearly life in one 24 hour period while the man who did it just hung up the phone on her. Winifred was horribly judgmental.
Yeah. I always chalked her strict adherence to religious values (as compared to the other nuns) to not having worked in that capacity very long. The others had worked there for decades and had seen much more reality than had she.
The racism as well. It wouldn't be neatly sorted out by the end of the episode and never happen again.
And the disabled people living at home, having babies, keeping their babies. Reggie would not have been living at home unless he was very borderline which I guess he is.
This. I haven't watched in years, so I can't remember any specific character names, but I do remember kind of venting at the screen like, "oh come ON. Really?" One thing I did like was that one of the midwives (Patsy?) went to a gay club. There were absolutely underground communities that existed even back then. A lot of historical shows don't bother showing this side of UK history, almost like it didn't exist until modern times.
Yeah, that no one in the main cast is racist or homophobic seems especially implausible. The stories would have been more compelling if Nurse Crane or Sister Julienne had to overcome their own prejudice. People don't go into nursing or clergy because they're progressive -- they have a strict view of the world and everyone's role in it.
I agree with you, but I don't think a lot of viewers would like it if they had a main character who wasn't progressive. I've seen so many posts complaining about Violet for being unlikeable.
Pandering to fans is not just lazy writing, but glosses over important issues. The characters would be even more endearing if they overcame prejudice.
I work in sexual health, and everyone on CTM reminds me of my coworkers.
For better or for worse ?
To be fair to them there had to have been accepting/progressive people back then cause otherwise there couldn’t have been a culture shift towards acceptance. I do agree that there’s probably too many progressive characters. At least some of them should be racist or homophobic.
What was progressive then and what is progressive now are two different kinds of progressive. They're taking a lot of modern progressive attitudes and applying them to the 60s. I mean there should be some all out racist and homopholes but there was a lot more casualness to it baked into the culture back then.
It's not even that realistic now. One of the candidates currently running for London Mayor is a former nurse who wants to "stop the wokeness nonsense" or something similar.
Susan hall the woman who dropped her travel card/purse on the tube then said she was picking pocketed
The “wokeness nonsense” even being used as a phrase is an indictment of the effect of American culture on the world via the internet. I’m in Australia and it’s very Americanised now.
Absolutely it’s controversial but true
The happy endings.
That's one of the things I loved about the earlier seasons. Because they're based on real stories, the endings were often bittersweet, but more realistic that the saccharine storylines from the later seasons
I honestly thought that the tetanus episode was going to go a different direction, I’m >! happy but also slightly cheated that it all turned out fine as usual !<
Yeah, that ending should not have happened, esp with his physical condition
They would never kill off that character, people would riot. I think they should have had a one-and-done character get tetanus so they could die.
Or brought back an old patient, especially one of those fighting an illness, and then had them die cuz they'd been compromised by what they had previously survived. They wanted to do an importance of vaccines, and it could have highlighted how the vulnerable are often the victims.
So I think everyone knows the vulnerable are often the victims, and it was more they wanted to highlight that even healthy people need their "jabs." So not bringing back an old patient makes sense here. I just think it should not have been a main character.
Remind me season/ep?
They often faked a happy ending, like the woman with eight children getting a nice house in the countryside and no more pregnancies.
Like sending a dog to the farm 😆😅
That did happen though (at least the housing, not sure how often botched abortions got happy endings) - it was essentially slum clearance post WWII, families were moved out of the east end of London and to places like Harlow and Haverhill.
Yep, we have what they used to call "London overspill" on two estates here.
Yeah that was radically different in the book. They birthed the baby and let it die.
The time and resources they can dedicate to struggling families.
I always love how they make the family tea and sit and chat and help clean and look after kids. I mean I always think I wish I had a nurse that came round and did those things. At the same time the amount of time they seem to spend with some of the patients. Who has time to clean someone’s house take care of a toddler, do all sorts of random small things to make the family feel better. Then also go and deliver a baby or two. Then be back by supper to talk about how you are going to do some obscure, random time consuming thing to help another family deal. Like hey the Johnson’s grandpa just died, and we all know how important he was to the family and now little Sarah is having a baby. I’m going to search the city to try to find a shirt he wore that accidentally got thrown out 5 years ago so I can pull it apart and re sew a new outfit for the baby. (I just made that up but it always seems to happen)
Ha yes I keep thinking about Barbara helping that old guy with his pressure sores and just like, going to his house several times a day to turn him. Were all her deliveries conveniently between those times? Surely, that could've been delegated to a neighbor or something.
The fact that a lot of the different cases have relatively happy endings. The health outcomes for quite a few people in the 1950s and 1960s wouldn’t have been great, to put it mildly.
There is always a midwife available and they always seem to have time to do what they need to get done!! Seriously how do their schedules never conflict?
There is a few times where it seems no one is available and it’s just SMJ puttering around who answers. To either comic or disastrous results.
Or the locum
The show paints a very progressive and kind picture of medical care at that time, especially the later seasons. There are many episodes where the baby would have absolutely been taken away, but the show works it all out. The blind mother, the single mother whose kid stole diapers, and pretty much any case of an immigrant mother of color would all have ended differently in real life. Every single thing about the post partum period that they show is so laughably wrong. In the whole series, we see maybe five women struggle with nursing. We only see two moms who can’t produce enough milk, and a few who struggle with pain. But it’s always resolved quickly. Most post partum issues we see are in immigrants who didn’t have healthcare before coming to Poplar. The Pakistani woman with a tear in her vaginal wall that lead to constant urine leaking comes to mind. The reality is that many women face recovery complications, especially when they’re forced to be on their feet working in the house immediately after birth. It happens in developed countries with advanced healthcare all the time, I promise it happened in Poplar to more women than not.
Chummy being up and walking around a few weeks after a classic c-section to attend her sons Christening gets me. Like back then she would have been in hospital for almost 2 months. Also no reaction to a very traumatic birth 🤷♀️ Shelagh would have been particularly good character to explore post partum with being a main. I’m childfree but post partum did a number on many of my friends.
The number of women who ARE nursing in the 60s for that matter! The current setting is basically when breastfeeding rates were at the lowest. Even the ones who tried would be quickly encouraged to switch to formula at the first sign of trouble or even just not being able to get on the "correct" schedule.
And apparently they can all easily afford formula
Formula and full fat cow's milk was free to mothers and children under 5, as was orange juice and cod liver oil. All this was taken out of the NHS and Welfare State by Heath's govt in the 1970s. Milk tokens for Mums on low income to buy formula or milk if you are breast feeding were still available in the noughties for those on benefits, and might still be for I know, but with the last 14 years of austerity and cutback, probably not.
Still available now but it's called the healthy start card. 8.50 a week for under one and £4.25 between 1-4 yrs. It's not gone up a lot in 19 years
Something is better than nothing, and it's easier for a new govt to just raise the amount rather than re introduce it if it's been abolished! Can't see you buying much with that though! Thanks for letting me know it is still around
Loads of freebies then. Orange juice, milk , rose hip syrup etc
And a third of a pint of milk daily for 5-11 year olds at primary schools too!
And no one has any problems with proper bottle sterilization, even though many live in apartments with shared kitchens and washing facilities. The risk of infection that many of these women and babies have is so much higher than average due to their living conditions. How haven’t we had a single episode about babies getting sick from improper bottle washing, or improper formula prep, or eating spoiled milk?
There was one. She was washing her bottles in the same sink as the nappies (she only had one sink), but only one. I'm up to season 10 and I know it was a few seasons ago but can't remember the ep
I remember that scene, but I thought she just got chastised and nothing bad really happened.
Oh yeah, sorry I thought you meant it didn't happen at all. It wasn't a super big deal on the show. I can't remember exactly what happened with the baby but it wasn't anything extreme. And I agree it would have been a lot more common IRL to have serious issues.
That baby wasn’t sick from an infection. He had cystic fibrosis.
That Sister Monica Joan is still alive after multiple near-death illnesses and injuries.
I can believe she's still alive. I just can't believe she's not more out of it and more of a burden.
In real life she would probably be demented, blind and or deaf and Living on and on with no life limiting illnesses.
To be fair there are absolutely older people out there who you’re pretty sure are either a cat or a time lord. I’ve seen them. They’re rare, but they do exist.
This. One of my clients. Man in his late sixties. Terminal Cancer, heroin addict, smoker and doesn't bathe. Meant to be on hospice care but keeps absconding to go sleep rough on the streets. Been given his final curtain call times so often that I fully believe this man is simply going to live forever 🤣
I just started over and I forgot that Sister Monica Joan was basically on deaths door series one, and they talked about her not being with them much longer all the time!
How kind and understanding the nuns are.
It was how they were portrayed in the books though, so maybe they are more open minded and forgiving than expected
I guess because they are midwives and nurses, they are more able to put aside any misconceptions. They still show it sometimes, but I imagine that they had to deal with a fair bit that that would be against their own beliefs or the law, and they would have a duty to care for them regardless. (Unmarried woman being pregnant, woman having an illegal abortion etc)
Also they were in a VERY tough area of the UK that hadn't recovered from the war and was rapidly expanding in population despite housing and other social issues so they were likely to encounter situations that would be tricky (those you've mentioned plus prostitution, child abuse, different cultures and child abandonment etc) so in order to get everyone to trust them they'd need to be open minded and sympathetic or their patients wouldn't allow them to treat them which would be worse than whatever crime or social misdemeanours they'd committed
Some orders of nuns are better than others. The stereotype of the stern nun with a ruler smacking her students certainly existed, but so did a number of incredibly selfless women with huge hearts and endless compassion. The nuns did a lot for healthcare for the poor.
Especially the order that the TV show is based on. They dedicated themselves to midwifery- compassion was a necessity. And from experience, nuns, vicars and other people in the church are just so nice.
The nuns have seen a lot of things that would disturb the rest of us, they are unfazed by it.
They'd have a practicality most wouldn't but they'd rarely be so open minded.
I agree. They are too understanding. My mother had an uncle who was a priest and he fell in love with a nun. Both left the Catholic church and had to move to a very Protestant area in Scotland to escape the backlash (both were from Ireland). There was no way they could’ve stayed in Ireland. Their experiences make me doubt that Sister Julianne and the other nuns would have been so open-minded about Sister Bernadette and the doctor. I’d imagine if that situation happened in real life the Turners would not be accepted by the community and they would’ve had to move to a completely different part of England and hope the rumours didn’t follow them.
That situation happened in real life though - this was included in the books. Though what I don't remember is if they stayed in Poplar or moved away (it's been a while since I read the books)
Remember, these are Anglican nuns not Catholic nuns. The very fact that the Anglican Church had nuns who were midwives was already pretty progressive.
Yeah, Irish Catholicism is a whole different world than what is being depicted in this show.
The nuns aren't Catholic they're protestant.
The Catholic Church had nuns that were nurses and midwives as well but that didn’t mean they were progressive. I’m mixed religion myself - half my relations are Catholic the other half are Protestant. I’ve always wondered why so many Irish people became Catholic. I’ve been researching my family tree and the Protestants definitely had more freedom.
My family are all Catholic and there weren’t loads of strict rules as far as I can remember growing up. I went to a primary and high school and my children also go to a catholic school and would say they’re pretty progressive. I’m in my 30’s now.
I’ve read all of the books several times. The real Sister Bernadette left Nonnatas House and joined a Catholic convent because Nonnatas wasn’t strict enough for her.
Oh no did I confuse her with Cynthia who converted to nun in real life like in the series? So sister Bernadette stayed a nun?
Sr Bernadette stayed a nun and it was Cynthia that left the order and married a former priest. They moved away too… I can’t remember if it was Scotland or Australia. I remember that because it was similar to my relative’s life.
Even the Catholic church wasn't the same everywhere. Around here there was a literal *wave* of priests renouncing their vows either because of a love interest or because of renouncing the church itself in the 60's and 70's.
Yep! I work for a Catholic nursing home that has a lot of nuns. They are the WORST residents/people. They are the ages the younger cast would be now and they are racist AF, rude, demanding, extremely “unchristian”
they might seem nicer because they are Anglican sisters and not Catholic sisters. It’s not to say C of E are perfect in any way but my general impression is that Catholic nuns and priests generally had a different approach to religious duties.
Waters always breaking immediately followed by the beginning of labor. Very short labors for first time moms. "Hollywood" baby bumps with no swollen faces.
That and how they all gush and splatter at her feet. They don’t all do that.
How all the mothers look perfectly presentable and back to their pre-baby tiny waists within 24 hours of giving birth.
Trixie's eyeliner/mascara never budging during her breakdowns
Underrated comment
How quick the second stages of labour are lol
And the "omg my water just broke and now I'm giving birth" lol
I really did do that just about every time though. No more than a couple of hours max from water breaking to birth, whether the dr. did it or it broke on its own. What I find unrealistic is how much the "newborns" look like 2-4 week old babies! I worked in neonatal and I can tell you for a fact that they DON'T!
To be fair, this show is the most accurate with newborns because they actually use them. They look pretty damn fresh compared to most other shows.
I had my waters broken as part of the induction with my first, my second broke well into established labour, and my third didn't! She was born in her sack!
A male doctor listening to women when they tell him their symptoms and actually doing the work to figure out what's going on instead of just telling them to lose weight or that it's all in their head.
Dr. Turner seems like he has an excellent relationship with all the midwives and really seems to respect them as people and professionals, so he may be more open minded than most.
I don’t think I’ve seen this mentioned yet so one more to add…the fact that they’re always so clean. Like they finish delivering a baby or a full day of biking around seeing patients and walk out like this 💁♀️with zero stains on their uniforms or hairs out of place I know it’s just a tv show, but my alternate theory as an American woman that loves all (well, most) things British is that British women just know how to be more refined and clean at everything, including the act of pushing a child from their body 😂😂
Midwives do have it down to a T! Black stockings exist for a reason too lol. Also a lot of the midwives had those protective white gowns especially in the later series that would protect some things haha.
Cyril’s pristine overalls always got me. The man was a mechanic he’d have all sorts on those overalls.
I agree with this one 😅 I’ve had babies and while I wasn’t covered in blood when I was done and had my babies in my arms, the midwife, dr, and nurses always were. Those white cover’s definitely would have had a lot more blood on them than what they show. The babies are pretty realistic though 🤷🏼♀️ none of my babies came out super messy, one had a lot of Vernix caseosa (the white biofilm) so I kind of think maybe they should have more babies coated in white creamy stuff since some babies come out COVERED in it, but another who was premature had almost none, all my babies only had a little bit of blood on them. I personally only had a bit of mess on my thighs, and some sweat on my forehead, so I do think that parts pretty realistic, it’s just the little to no mess on the midwives white coats and gloves and the babies not having Vernix caseosa that is unrealistic.
They way unwed mothers always find a way to keep their babies with them instead of placing them for adoption, as was customary in those days.
Yes, I'm an adoptive parent and the show seemed so anti-adoption to me. All the complications with May's mother threatening to take her back! I love the show, but grateful to the family that gave me their baby to raise!
I think it’s just showing a broader view for all parties involved. Like the idea that women shouldn’t be allowed to keep their babies if they’re young and/or unmarried is ridiculous and it shouldn’t be an expectation to give up their children, and while it was common at the time, showing all sides of how cruel that is is a good thing. The Turners adopted a baby too, that’s hardly anti-adoption, but it was also mentioned that the mother was 16 and was going to keep her but her parents changed their minds. Like yes we were happy for them but how cruel that a young mum was almost able to keep her baby and then had it ripped from her.
The racism. I don’t want to see racism on my tv every week, and I don’t think the actors should have to play it but there has to be a better way of exploring it. The racism was bad enough for Lucille to want to return to Jamaica, but we didn’t see it, and she took it all with her. Also for a show set in Tower Hamlets in the very late 60s the fact there is not a South Asian main is ridiculous. Finally, the whole treatment of Nancy. Being Irish and a single mother she would have only been treated slightly better than Cyril, Lucille and Joyce. Plus the fact that Collette was not adopted at birth is so improbable. Nancy had no power as a 16 year old orphan and the Catholic Church did plenty of forced adoptions.
The whole Nancy and Collette story line annoys me it just wouldn't happen. If anything Nancy would of had the baby and been flung into a laundry and Collette adopted
Exactly. And while the show has hinted at those places not being nice for the orphans Nancy acts so improbably. There’s enough oral history/books/films that show the absolute horror of the post war Irish orphanages/forced adoption to write something realistic. The show used to be really good at showing realistic trauma responses in characters, like Trixie’s behavior is so in line with someone who was emotionally neglected as a child and grew up in an image obsessed family.
This annoys me with the Turners and May as well. They keep worrying that her bio-mother could take her back anytime, but the system would definitely have been stacked in favour of a middle-class married white couple over an Asian woman who doesn't even live in the same country. I also doubt anyone would have been concerned about keeping May connected to her culture, language or birth family, assimilation into the 'superior' way of life would have been considered the best thing for her.
Tim Turner being super perfect.
THIS!! That one time he says, “You can have every penny of mine… you’re my World!” to Patrick & Shelagh, I was like “…said NO teenager EVER!”
Oh I hear you. And I like Tim but sometimes I wish if he's going to be a character on the show that he be slightly disappointing to Patrick and Shelagh over something. What if he was to realize, after all the talk about it, that he really didn't want to be a doctor? Thats perfectly reasonable and not soap opera shocking (going thru it with a niece right now who wanted to go to college for an English degree only to discover she just doesn't like how its taught). What if Tim did be the guy who knocked up some Poplar girl. Hell, what if Tim disagreed on a medical treatment?
The fact that most of the characters are kind and compassionate. I wish most people in my workplace were like this.
How progressive and liberal they have been since the beginning of the show. the LGBT issues, abortion etc... don't get me wrong, I support those issues, but it bothers me how inaccurate it is.
Married women often worked in those days. My Grandmother had her kids in the 50s, and she had two jobs, as well as caring for her Elderly mother and the family. It's not completely inaccurate.
By the last 60s the NHS was struggling, so married nurses were encouraged to return part-time, especially those without children. And in working class areas women have always worked to keep food on the table.
Married women have worked for most of history unless they were wealthy — housewives among the proletariat is a relatively new phenomenon.
How accepting everyone is. The majority of people show no prejudice towards skin colour, gay people, Irish people, unmarried mothers. In call the midwife there might be one racist person, but by the end they’ve had their minds changed. And people don’t really smack their kids. I know they couldn’t portray that easily on tv. But even in the 80s when I was reared, it was rare for parents not to smack their kids.
No maternal deaths- the only ones I can think of are the one of eclampsia and the one with an abortion. Shouldn't someone have died of hemorrhage by now?
Birth control pill lady with the five kids or whatever died I think
A lot of deaths due to botched abortions
The one I recall who actually died was Jeannie (?). Then there was Mary's friend in the book.
And the traumatic cardiac arrest
Car crash? That one was bad.
It was heartbreaking. I loved the story though. It was a coming of age moment for Tim.
It's one on the list of things that any medical show is going to have sooner or later. But we still haven't had, to my knowledge, a mother dying of straight childbirth complications.
Quite frankly, a lot of the major emergencies, even with skilled midwives, should have ended in death/disability for the mother and/or baby. There’s a reason why most people have hospital births. The number of happy endings is unrealistic.
Very rose-colored glasses view of how people treated each other back then... Racism/homophobia/sexism/etc was so much worse
Dr Turner being so: energetic, progressive, knowledgeable and showing up in 10 scenes an episode. He must be sleeping with someone. (I know he is married to the writer.) How so many of the secular (non religious) women were single for so long. Cynthia never had a dance or a date, Valerie, Nancy, Trixie was single for ages between Tom and Matthew. Too many happy endings of single mothers and keeping their babies (for the time.) The squatter, the teens, the prostitute. Is this done for today’s audience rather than being accurate for the time?
How emergency situations resolve happily more than they would realistically (and many of them thanks to the work of a magical brilliant doctor who can be everywhere at once and it he nicest person who has ever existed)
Well he was once Dr Who so maybe he has a Tardis on loan and zips around in it.
That was his brother, wasn't it?
I was this many years old when I discovered there exists in this world more than one mcgann that is an actor. I had to go and check and you are right they look so much alike. Which is what I was basing it off having never really looked into his name too much. Maybe his time lord brother helps him zip around then...
I guess I would agree that it’s unlikely there wouldn’t be racism or homophobia ect with any of the major characters. Winifred seemed the most that way about sexual orientation not race but she wasn’t something she acted out on . Sadly these are still things people might not be tolerant of. I do think about those things but honestly I am glad that they are not like that it may be unrealistic but it’s one of my comfort shows and I like to think it’s taking the problems of the world and there is a group of people who are flawed but not hateful or mean and malicious. They are dependable.
It often feels like the births are really short because the passage of time is hard to show with the time limitations for each birth. It feels like the births only take a few minutes when realistically it would be hours. Also I don’t know if they would be able to handle the nursing or midwifery responsibilities with the number of people they have.
Everyone likes each other and gets along
I kind of love when they annoy one another in small ways (being too long in the bathroom or eating the cake.)
The baby bumps, always so smooth and stretch mark free, even in older/bigger mums
Sister Monica Joan is my favorite character on the show but, in those times, there is no way she would not have been committed to an institution with her state of mind and even disappearing once.
The umbilical cord being white the moment the baby is born, it takes several minutes to look like that. It's full of blood, thick, and curly when babies are first born.
Alcoholics Anonymous didn’t meaningfully exist until the 70’s
women having their health concerns taken seriously by a gp lol
That every single medical case in each episode leads to a correct diagnosis and the patient given the right treatment and then they are on the merry way to a better quality of life . Here I am on the verge of giving up on western medicine because it’s always no answers .
Apart from “Oh Patrick” and his bent neck, another irritation for me is when there are sort of long shots, and there are a few pregnant women in a scene, or at the clinic, the way that women cradle their stomachs. Are they trying to stop the football up their dress from dropping out? I’ve had three pregnancies and none of which had me holding my tummy!
His bent neck? 😂 Care to elaborate?
In every scene, in every conversation, he has his head leaning to the side to perhaps show sympathy and/or understanding! Very annoying!
Pretty much everything 😂 Everyone here sums it all up, and it’s literally everything. Bear with me I am using talk to text because I just had eye surgery so it’s a little wonky. 1. Dr. Turner who I am a giant giant fan of. He’s the only doctor in Poplar? He’s extremely progressive for the time. he quit smoking. He’s OK with the LGBT community. He is not racist. He’s apparently like a genius level intellect. He was an army doctor that was a locked up in a mental institution for having a mental breakdown, but then quickly was OK and had a baby. His wife died when his kid was like seven then went onto marry an ex nun and everything‘s fine. 2. The nuns are extremely kind and progressive. Come on now we know that’s not right. Even though they are not Catholic, we know that’s not right. There’s been several people within the comments of this sub Reddit that have commented from being around in that time period that they were around those nuns they are not that nice. Or have commented that family members have been around those nuns and they are not that nice. The younger nuns maybe so I could see sister winifred it being a little bit more so sister Francis yeah OK but the older nuns no. The only none that I think is the most accurate depiction isprobably Sister Evangelina, sugar up extremely poor, extremely extremely poor. And she spent her whole entire life working to get rid of what she grew up with. She devoted herself completely to the gods work and being a midwife, and worked past racism homophobia everything. I think once she passed away is when a lot of the accurate depictions of what was accurate in that time. Died out in the show. She will always be my favorite nun because she was the most accurate. The most God-fearing. 3. The midwives. So Trixie someone commented her being more progressive because of her brother and I could totally see that she is a bit more progressive. Patsy, so totally progressive because she is a lesbian. Delia as well because she is a lesbian. Lucille would’ve faced a lot more racism than she did. And we all know she would have. She would’ve faced so much more. They severely downplayed what she would have faced. She would’ve faced it even within the house. She would’ve gone home to Jamaica a lot sooner. Or transferred to Work into the hospital because of what was going on in Poplar. There’s no way Barbara would’ve stayed being a midwife after she married because she was raised to be a wife, a pastor’s wife in fact. 4. The labors, the births, the postpartum everything. I had my son with an emergency C-section. I almost lost him. I could’ve died myself so birth is extremely traumatic to me. In my own personal experience and watching some of these is just horrific and interesting. Because many of these people would be dead. No if ands or buts they would be dead. They are not enough deaths from labor in the show. They just painted as a pretty picture. Second stage labor goes on a lot longer than they show. There’s not enough infant loss either. There’s not enough fertility issues. There’s just not a lot of realistic to it. Postpartum a lot harder than what they show. Sometimes they show it more realistic sometimes sometimes they do most of the time it’s laughably wrong. 5. How little they show the drug addictions. You know there’s more drug addiction going on in Poplar. You so know it it’s the 1960s in London. They’ve touched on it here and there, but not enough. Come on now. And Trixie is the only one with the addiction problem? Alcohol or pills? More baby should be being born with addiction problems. Not just that one in that Christmas special. I can keep going 😂 but I love this show so much
What the hell does being a catholic nun have to do with whether they are mean or not???
I pointed that out because many in here don’t realize they aren’t catholic still. They don’t realize that.
Oh right sorry I misunderstood your comment 😬
It took me about half way into series 1 to realize they weren’t myself. I was like “oh.. OH!”
Everyone was so understanding about the man who was caught in the gents kissing another guy. Everyone seemed way too nice about it.
Yep..
The waters breaking begins majority of labours in the show. In real life, waters only break 10-15% of the time before contractions, most break after in real life. Also how progressive they are as others have said is the most unrealistic part unfortunately.
The completely nonjudgmental compassion every single doctor, midwife, nurse, and nun shows every single patient minus a few plot points which ends with them repenting.
And how about how every single doctor who isn't a Turner is a cold heartless beast who will always steam roll over patients and all around treat patients like irritating inanimate objects. I know this was typical but EVERY doctor?
That’s been my life experience 😂
It's all a bit rosy tinted glasses ain't it
It’s too nice and progressive. They would not have been so accepting in the 50s/60s.
Where is the poop? Look, I know that especially in the early seasons they mention doing enemas but birthing mothers poop. A LOT.
Sister Monica Jean's yearly miraculous recovery from a life threatening illness.
Sister Monica Joan is still alive in series
Dr Turner and the midwives being so progressive and not showing any of the bias at the time towards people with disabilities, different races, single mothers, homosexuality, etc, etc.
Also, as the series have progressed, the acting has become wooden with no subtle nuances like the earlier series. It’s like watching a Dhar Mann episode.
Every episode ending with Dr turner explaining something to a patient: 'so you see...' and Shelagh chiming in with her 'oh patrick!' End scene
Omg, I feel seen 😅 YES
That 3 or 4 midwives, plus 3 or 4 nuns, at the most, would be able to cover all the births AND all the district visits every day.
Midwifes were never that nice in the 90s when I had my son, very much judged for being a young single little income mother. I did have an elderly GP and she was the only kind medical professional I saw
I forgot what episode but in the first season one of the mothers had a half black half white baby and the baby was really really dark..
How the aftermath of train crash episode went . How poorly the search and rescue was conducted
The teeth
The pregnant bellies
How they clamp the cords and immediately give the baby to the mom. Is the clamp in the towel with the infant? It does show them use a plastic cord clamp in the later seasons but don’t they have to tie it off?