One Born Every Minute returns with a focus on parents
The childbirth programme’s 12th series shifts attention from maternity staff to families’ experiences, with its first episode scheduled for October 25 on Channel 4.
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The childbirth programme’s 12th series shifts attention from maternity staff to families’ experiences, with its first episode scheduled for October 25 on Channel 4.
One Born Every Minute is returning to Channel 4 for a 12th series centred on parents rather than maternity staff, the Guardian says in a feature. The award-winning childbirth programme’s previous run ended in 2018.
When the programme began in 2010, it observed everyday life in a maternity unit, including midwives’ conversations and parents’ disagreements over baby names. Medical staff remained prominent characters through its first 11 series. The revival gives more space to families’ histories and what each birth means to them.
Will Rowson, executive producer at Dragonfly, which makes the programme for Channel 4, said broader casting would bring a wider range of stories. He also described a move away from whimsical, incidental scenes, with a tighter budget another factor in the changed approach.
Rowson said people were more accustomed to sharing personal experiences. He argued that viewers could find brief glimpses of everyday life elsewhere, while the programme could explore families’ backstories and the significance of a birth in ways a 30-second social-media clip could not.
The new series is set at St Mary’s hospital in Manchester, which specialises in maternity care, and will feature more complicated pregnancies and surgical procedures. It retains the earlier programme’s explicit depiction of childbirth, including caesarean births, in which a baby is delivered through surgery.
Casting director Nsofwa Nwannadi said some participants applied and many responded to messages from the hospital. Her team also approached ethnic minority communities, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, and disability communities to seek a wider range of experiences.
One participant describes repeated miscarriages before an unexpected pregnancy at 38. Another discusses having twins, concerns about their growth and the decision to have a caesarean. These experiences form part of the programme’s attention to life before the delivery itself.
The opening episode is scheduled for Sunday night, October 25, on Channel 4. It addresses caesarean births, anxiety about health and pregnancy loss.
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