As Call The Midwife nears a new decade, FEMAIL looks back at midwifery during the Swinging Sixties 

  • Third series of hit show planned for 2014
  • Sixties onwards saw radical changes in midwifery
  • Hospital births rose in popularity over home births
  • Email femail@mailonline.co.uk with your memories

By Lucy Waterlow

PUBLISHED: 07:28 EST, 8 April 2013 | UPDATED: 10:45 EST, 8 April 2013


With its portrayal of life and labour in the 1950s, two series of BBC drama Call The Wife have been a huge success. But now viewers are hooked and keen for series three, producers have a slight problem - they've used up all the stories from the memoirs of midwife Jennifer Worth on which the series was based.

But with the last episode ending in 1958, the third series - which has been confirmed for 2014 along with a Christmas special - could move into the Sixties.

Just like in Mad Men, where moving the action at an advertising agency on from the Fifties to the Sixties breathed new life into the show, taking Call the Midwife into a new decade could explore a whole new realm of social history.

Hit show: Call The Midwife portrays midwifery in the 1950s when home births were the norm. But changes are afoot for the characters in the 1960s...

Hit show: Call The Midwife portrays midwifery in the 1950s when home births were the norm. But changes are afoot for the characters in the 1960s...

So what was life like for midwives in the Sixties?

For those who were used to the Fifties era portrayed in Call the Midwife, major changes were afoot.

 

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As seen on the show, many midwives would travel by bike to home births with all their essential equipment in one leather bag they could carry on the back of their bicycles.

But by the late Fifties, gas and air that was inhaled through special apparatus during contractions was becoming more popular as pain relief. However, this apparatus was too cumbersome to travel with by bike.

Pedal power: Midwives would cycle to their patients in the 50s with everything they needed in a bag on the back - but medical advances and the need for more equipment meant this became more difficult in the 60s

Pedal power: Midwives would cycle to their patients in the 50s with everything they needed in a bag on the back - but medical advances and the need for more equipment meant this became more difficult in the 60s

In 1959, the Minister of Health was quizzed by an the MP from Stoke-on-Trent on when the government was going to provide motor vehicles to midwives in place of bikes so they could transport gas and air more easily. The minister replied that it was a 'question for local authorities'.

But this was not an option that was fully explored as the tide began to turn against home births and hospital births - often led by male physicians - became more much popular. 

Hospital births where life-saving medical intervention could be taken if there were birth complications began to be seen as much safer and traditional midwives were sidelined.

Fashion forward: In the Sixties, midwives were allowed to wear trousers as part of their uniform

Fashion forward: In the Sixties, midwives were allowed to wear trousers as part of their uniform

No men allowed: A typical labour ward in the 1960s were men were not allowed to be present for the birth of their child

No men allowed: A typical labour ward in the 1960s were men were not allowed to be present for the birth of their child

In 1970, the Peel Report recommended that all births should be carried out in hospitals.

The Sunday Express Baby Book, published in 1950, described a typical hospital birth in the following gentile way: 'In the delivery room, white with bright lights, you will be taken from a hospital trolley to the delivery table. The nurses will be standing by with the doctor and with their gentle help and encouragement, aided by the science they have studied so long, your baby will be born.'

One in three births took place in homes in the Sixties but by the Seventies, the majority of births were on labour wards.

Maureen Hiles, 61, from Romford, Essex, who was a midwife in the Seventies, recalled in The Sun: 'By the time I qualified, home births were a thing of the past. Pretty much everyone gave birth in a hospital and they would remain there for five or six days. In the case of a Caesarean, it could be up to ten days. And there was no such thing as an epidural.'

Radical change: By 1970, home births were becoming obsolete and most babies were born in hospital

Radical change: By 1970, home births were becoming obsolete and most babies were born in hospital

Procedures such as shaving and enemas that were used in home births in the Fifties remained for hospitalised patients in the Sixties and Seventies. 'It was all part of the course and people just accepted it. It was done to prevent infection but I think, if anything, it probably made things worse,' Mrs Hiles said.

Nursing tales: Jane Yeadon recalls life as a midwife in her book 'It Shouldn't Happen To A Midwife!'

Nursing tales: Jane Yeadon recalls life as a midwife in her book 'It Shouldn't Happen To A Midwife!'

She added: 'Hospitals were seen as the best and the safest place to give birth. Personally, I thought home deliveries were much more personal. It would involve the whole family. It was easy, everything was much smoother.'

There was also a change in fashion for midwives in the Sixties as they were allowed to wear trousers as part of their uniform for the first time.

For home births and hospital births wearing a mask across their face was a must. But Call The Midwife's consultant midwife Terri Coates said they dropped this element from the show because 'masks don't make for great television!'

Giving birth in hospital in the Sixties had one huge difference to today - fathers-to-be were banned from being present.

As Jane Yeadon, a midwife in the Sixties and author of It Shouldn’t Happen To A Midwife, said: 'Oh my goodness if men went into the labour ward they were treated as if they were surplus to requirements.'

Yeadon explains in her book that attitudes to unmarried mothers were also very different then.

Nurses would refer to such babies as 'illigits', and both they are their mothers would be segregated from the married mothers and their newborns.

'When I look back I can’t actually believe we did that,' she said.

Using drugs for pain relief also became much more popular in the Sixties and Seventies with physicians often using forceps to deliver babies whose mothers were in a drug-induced sleep.

Some people were unhappy with how medicalised giving birth had become and support grew for home birth movements. The characters of Call the Midwife could well be seen supporting these movements in future episodes as their methods of delivery start to become obsolete.  

What was your experience of giving birth in the Sixties and Seventies? Were you a midwife or did you work on a maternity ward during these decades? Send your pictures and stories to us at femail@mailonline.co.uk and they will be featured in a future article

 
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My mother was a midwife in the sixties and the move away from homebirths began long before then so any programme set at that time, with any pretence of accuracy, is going to be based in an hospital environment.

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All newspapers uo

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I love the prog but find the everyday depictions of life then very depressing.I was born in the East-end of London and it was gritty and poor and I hope never to have to live-it again.My spoilt 14 yr old American daughter can't believe that we had no washing machine,telephone,fridge or running hot water.She does not know how lucky she is does she?Can't help wishing I had had better oppertunities for education etc.But it was a struggle to stay at school till 16 as most of my pals left at 15.Can't really say anything good about the East-end-best forgotten!

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I loved the series having read all her books. I trained in General Nursing and worked as a staff nurse in a large city general hospital. I then did my Midwifery training in 1982. This was the only way to access Midwifery study at the time. Practices such as shaving and enemas were still being carried out then. Over the next 30 years, the midwifery profession changed dramatically as we went from being the obstetricians handmaidens (to a point), back to being recognised as the experts in the management of normal pregnancy, birth and the postnatal care of women as portrayed in Call The Midwife, at least by most people! Now Midwifery led units are available in the majority of maternity units, and women with normal labours have choices. Even home births are rising again although they will never reach the numbers they once were. Many new stories could be gleaned from other midwives to continue the series. I don't think Jennifer would mind as long as the spirit remained true to her books.

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YEY!! A new series!! :D

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Can't wait for the next series. By far the best thing on the tv.

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Dont make the fatal mistake of going a series too far - like they have done with so many good dramas, like Downton, why cant they agree to quit while ahead. Leave at the top, leave without the series that lets it all down. It is poure greed for more success. So may good dramas do this and then you tend to forget the true value of the initial series that were so successful and only remember the cringeworthiness of the final series too far set that should never have been broadcast at all. Quit while you are winning....its not made a saying for nothing you know!"

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My first child was born in 1961, at home, because there was no room in the hospitals at that time. Everything went very well with the excellent domicilliary midwife service at the time, as well as my GP arriving just 5 minutes before the birth!. It was such a trouble free and positive experience that all my five subsequent children's births took place in the comfort of our own home.Midwifery services were really good and a few weeks before the births Iwould go to my local clinic and pick up my "sealed box" which contained all the essential equipment for the birth. One junior midwife arrived on her bycicle and left it in the front garden while she rushed up stairs to be with me while my husband went by car to fetch the senior midwife.The birth, my 5th. child, was quick and all over in 3 hours and when she went down to go to her home she found that her bycicle had been stolen from the front garden!! This was in Willesden, London in 1968! I am all for home births despite such problems!

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great programme. Love it !

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The first series of Mad Men was set in 1960, the show was never in the fifties to begin with.

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