I heard about the new BBC drama Babies the week before it aired and was keen to watch it, not least because miscarriage is so rarely portrayed on screen – particularly as a central storyline. I enjoyed it, insofar as that word can be applied to such a devastating subject. The series offers a raw, nuanced and deeply realistic account of recurrent miscarriage and it gets a great deal right.
Lisa (Siobhán Cullen) and Stephen (Paapa Essiedu) are a young couple in their thirties navigating the heartbreak caused by repeated miscarriages. The pacing of the show – at times almost painfully slow – mirrors the real experience of conception, early pregnancy and reproductive loss.
It allows the viewer to sit with emotional complexity – the shifting feelings, the uncertainty and the drawn-out liminality of making a family. Time appears suspended for the couple, even as life continues around them. We see Lisa returning to work increasingly detached, exhausted and withdrawn, while other pregnancies progress, babies are born and the world moves on.
Stephen’s insistence that they “must think positive” is familiar – the partner adopting a supportive role while masking their own grief. When Lisa challenges his suggestion that others don’t realise she has “been through so much,” reminding him that it has happened to both of them, the moment is ambiguous. Is she inviting him to share in the grief, or expressing frustration that he is not experiencing the loss in the same way? These tensions echo accounts shared by women I have interviewed through my work on fertility, reproduction and pregnancy endings.
Throughout the series, Lisa and Stephen navigate layers of distress – at times drawing close, at others remaining emotionally distant. Their oscillation between hope and despair, and between the need to “keep moving” and the pull of grief, reflects patterns commonly found in miscarriage stories.
Visceral realities of baby loss
I was most interested in how the physical experience of miscarriage would be portrayed. Early in the first episode, I felt a familiar disappointment. The miscarriages occur off-screen, with the focus placed almost entirely on emotional aftermath, with little attention paid to the reality of pain and bleeding. However, this shifts with Lisa’s third miscarriage, which is one of the most accurate portrayals I have seen.
We see blood, albeit briefly and only a very small amount. Lisa’s pain is audible in her cries and moans. The movement through different spaces – her place of work before returning home, then their bedroom, the bathroom, the living room – marks escalating levels of distress, capturing the duration and inconsistency of miscarriage.
This is not a quick or contained event, but an unfolding process. Stephen’s growing panic as he seeks help, culminating in the arrival of paramedics (seemingly against Lisa’s wishes), underscores the seriousness of the situation, the lack of preparation and the couple’s helplessness.
The series also conveys the diversity of miscarriage experience and response. Lisa’s first loss is a “spontaneous” miscarriage at seven weeks; the second, a missed miscarriage managed surgically; the third unfolds “naturally” after the onset of pain and bleeding. Importantly, the viewer witnesses these experiences in ways that may feel recognisable to many – this is not “just a heavy period”.
That said, I would have welcomed more detail on miscarriage management. While we learn that Lisa undergoes an “ERPC” (evacuation for retained products of conception) for her second miscarriage, the absence of discussion around her options and decision-making represents a missed opportunity to depict clinical care more fully, and to foreground women’s agency.
The series doesn’t shy away from the visceral reality of loss. Lisa’s anguished description of “my baby dripping into the toilet”, is confronting but important. Miscarriage is often sanitised in public debate, and frequently unfolds in private domestic spaces. Babies portrays the reality of miscarriage, 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.
While Babies succeeds in many respects, the portrayal of clinicians is more problematic. The first doctor’s casual “Yup, yup, yup, all gone” during a scan devastates, with no sense that for Lisa what is “gone” is her longed-for baby.
During the second pregnancy the sonographer refers to their “baby” and suggests they look at the screen before becoming excruciatingly quiet. The abrupt shift from shared excitement to silence and blunt disclosure, and the GP’s depiction is emblematic of an unfeeling NHS system, all contributing to a narrative of insensitive care.
Some viewers may recognise these experiences. Over 15 years of research in Qatar and the UK, 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.
While Babies contributes to this important recognition, it also 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.
The involvement of consultants from Tommy’s Charity contributes to the series’ sensitivity and accuracy, underscoring the value of such collaborations. Cullen and Essiedu deliver compelling performances, conveying emotional complexity and intimacy with subtlety and depth.
Babies is slow, thoughtful and often heartbreaking. Despite some limitations, it is a welcome and important contribution – one that lays bare the realities of miscarriage with honesty and compassion.
Susie Kilshaw receives funding from the Wellcome Trust as part of a University Award in the Social and Historical
Science (Award number: 212731/Z/18/Z) and also holds a AHRC Curiosity Award (Award number: UKRI1126)
She has also received funding from ESRC Impact Acceleration grant (Award number: KEI2024-01-53 ESRC IAA KEIF).