One Born Every Minute returns for 12th series with parents at its centre

The series first aired in 2010 and its Bafta-winning first run ended in 2018. The reboot is made by Dragonfly for Channel 4 and is set at St Mary’s hospital in Manchester, which specialises in maternity care. The first episode tackles subjects that have come to the foreground since the earlier run, including caesarean births—noting that these have doubled over the past decade—as well as health anxiety and pregnancy loss.

Will Rowson, executive producer at Dragonfly, said the way people have children has changed. “People are so used to sharing. They expect to share, there is a willingness to share, and that is a generational thing,” he said, according to The Guardian. He said the programme would cover an “enormously diverse range of stories” after a wider approach to casting and a move away from “eclectic, whimsical” scenes on television. A tighter budget was also a factor.

Rowson said the series was designed to give narratives and family backstories rather than the miscellaneous moments viewers can find elsewhere. “We’re recognising that people will get their miscellany and gentle anthropology elsewhere, so we make sure we’re giving the narratives, the backstories of the families, and understanding what the birth means to them,” he said. “That’s the sort of context and richness you don’t get in a 30-second clip.”

The show retains a visceral approach, the Guardian said, from bellies being sliced open to a baby being pulled out smeared in faeces. Set in a hospital that specialises in maternity care, the series will feature more complicated pregnancies and surgical procedures. Rowson described witnessing such births as extraordinary: “You go ‘oh my goodness, I can’t believe I get to see that’.”

Faye, who is shown giving birth by caesarean section, said the programme let her experience her son’s birth differently. “I remember shaking, and feeling this overwhelming feeling of being cold and quite scared. And actually, when I’ve seen it back, I’m in really safe hands, and I got to see my little boy being born,” she said. As an NHS clinical lead, she also wanted viewers to see “what’s going on in the background, and how much hard work people do”. “You always hear the bad stuff and not the good stuff,” she said.

In the first episode, Faye discusses multiple miscarriages that led her to believe she would not have children until a surprise pregnancy at 38. She said she wanted to help people understand “how many women it happens to, and how difficult it is to experience”. “I just felt something was wrong with me. I felt this lack of being a woman, and it fed into my [former] marriage, and everything broke down further from that,” she said. When she became pregnant, her earlier losses intensified her anxiety: “I said to [my partner] Will ‘if I experience it again, I think I’ll be broken’.”

Peace, another participant, wanted to show the experience of having twins, from concerns over their growth to the decision to have a caesarean section, and to share the health complications her daughter was born with. “I would love to watch that,” she said, adding that she began watching the show as a child: “I love seeing normal women with normal bodies having normal pregnancies.” She wanted viewers to understand the importance of “not letting things out of your control get to you”, the Guardian reported. She said she initially hesitated because she did not want to open up about miscarriage. “I didn’t want to do it at first, because I didn’t want to open up about [miscarriage], and because I feel it seems like a taboo topic to talk about, and you blame yourself. There is this perception of having a perfect pregnancy,” she said.

Her partner, Kwamdeen, felt the episode would be “a great memento” to show their children. Nsofwa Nwannadi, the casting director, said she was surprised by how open people were and was moved by the desire among those who experienced challenges for “people to understand that they are not alone, it’s not stigmatised, it’s not your fault”. Some participants applied to be on the show, with many responding to communications sent out by the hospital, Nwannadi said. Her team sought a diverse range of participants and experiences by engaging with minority ethnic, LGBT and disability communities.