Review of the BBC series ‘Babies’

Susie was invited last week by The Conversation to review the new BBC fictional drama ‘Babies’, which tells a story of a couple living in the UK experiencing recurrent miscarriage.

“Babies portrays the [visceral] reality of miscarriage”, she writes, “including toilets, where most miscarriages occur and are disposed of. The drama also gives a sense of the range of feelings that accompany miscarriage: hope, fear, anger, frustration, optimism, sadness and grief”.

However, “the portrayal of clinicians is more problematic”, as it constructs an overly simplistic narrative of insensitive care. “Over 15 years of research”, Susie writes, “I have encountered accounts of poor and insensitive miscarriage care. However, more recent research suggests that particularly within the NHS, care has improved significantly, with women reporting compassionate and sensitive support. During 20 months of fieldwork in a large NHS foundation trust in England, I consistently observed responsive and empathetic clinical care. This is not to suggest uniformity across and within settings, but rather to question whether Lisa’s experience reflects the norm in many NHS contexts today. As I have argued elsewhere, an understanding of miscarriage as bereavement increasingly underpins NHS care, reflecting a broader cultural shift that recognises miscarriage as a significant loss”.

Susie also points out that the series “reinforces a dominant narrative in which miscarriage is always experienced as traumatic and devastating. While this will resonate with many – and such validation is important – it risks marginalising those whose experiences fall outside this, including some of the women I have interviewed in my work”.

You can find the full review — ‘Babies: raw, nuanced, real – what this BBC drama gets right about recurrent miscarriage’ — here.