sight of the cameras – beneath or behind the bed so as to stay within instant reach of the baby.
Natalie Hannington signed up her tiny daughter Santana – her sixth child – after seeing one of our leaflets in her maternity clinic. An eight-pound baby, Santana arrived via Caesarean section. Natalie, who is 31, describes her as ‘just perfect’, and was happy to share her baby with the nation on the screen.
Before appearing on camera Santana, like all performers, made a visit to make-up. There, she was massaged with pure grapeseed oil and ‘bloodied’ with a sugar-based red colouring so that she looked fresh from the womb. Many babies are also born with a coating of vernix – the white fatty substance that protects their skin in utero – and if this is required, a paste of Sudocreme and oil is carefully applied.
Christine Walmesley-Cotham, hair and make-up designer, supervises all of these preparations. Responsible for many blood-and-gore effects across the series, she is deeply involved in making pregnancy and birth look real on camera.
Christine says she is grateful that, since the advent of silicone, medical prosthetics are of a universally high quality. This lightweight malleable material offers a durability and level of detail that was not possible with latex. Silicone is used to create bumps for ‘mums-to-be’, which can be padded to suit the stage of a fictional pregnancy, and coloured to match the skin tone of the actress. My own favourite prostheses, however, are the exquisitely delicate umbilical cords – small coiled masterpieces of palest mauve. It seems at once odd and entirely right that they should be kept in the make-up store, alongside the lipsticks and lacquer. For these are props from the world of women, things that are stored in the vault of all we share.
When it was time to film Santana’s scene, real-life mum Natalie watched proceedings on a monitor. The baby murmured only briefly, when she was first carried into the bright light of the set, but settled within moments. Helen George, who plays Trixie, handed her to the actress playing her mother, who cradled her lovingly, and after Philippa called ‘Cut!’ there was the usual sound of all the male technicians clearing their throats and blowing their noses.
‘It was weird to see her handed to someone else,’ admits Natalie. ‘But it’s lovely just looking at her. It would have been fantastic to have done the same with all the other children,’ she says. Like every mother who has taken part in the show, she will keep a recording of Santana’s TV debut for the young star to see when she is older.
While Terri’s first concern on set is always for the wellbeing of the baby, her presence is vital to the adult actors too. Some weeks before a birthing scene is filmed, the script is rehearsed in detail. Terri uses a wonderful old shabby-chic doll, which she has had throughout her career, to demonstrate the delivery moves to the actors. This is especially important when the birth is complicated. She is also careful to point out how the mother’s modesty would have been preserved, and to explain key clinical phrases so that the nuns, midwives and doctors can say them with an air of confidence. She also provides crucial guidance to the actresses playing the labouring mothers. In the fifties, girls married and gave birth young, and this is reflected in the age of our performers. Very few have given birth in real life and they rely on Terri to ensure that their on-screen labour is as life-like as possible.
Terri believes that too many on-screen births are melodramatic and overly vocal. ‘A lot of women are centred and calm in labour, not at all like you see in soap operas. They are focused and often very wrapped up in themselves,’ she explains. In the opinion of Pam Ferris, this approach is key to the success of the birth scenes in Call the Midwife. ‘We’ve had fabulous actresses doing the birthing, making really believable noises. The emotional temperature in the room is really high when we’re doing those sequences,’ says Pam. ‘It’s very, very powerful stuff. You don’t get much more fundamental than that really. The anxiety and the joy combined make them very, very highly charged moments for everybody. Although we’re sometimes only giving birth to a little bit of plastic, you still get excited.’
These ‘little bits of plastic’ are actually prosthetic babies, which appear in almost every episode. They take the place of real babies in the more technically complex delivery shots.
The detailed small figures have the dimensions of a six-and-a-half-pound infant, but weigh rather more, and have a wipe-clean silicone skin that can be dressed with oils, gels and creams.
In Episode One, Jenny is given her first case to handle alone: Conchita Warren – played by Carolina Validés – who is pregnant with her 25th child.
Terri Coates, Consultant Midwife, on set tending to a newborn.
(© We Are Laura)
(© We Are Laura)
Amy Roberts, Costume Designer, has a range of pregnancy padding to hand, which actors delight in trying on.
Top right: Terri Coates, Consultant Midwife, demonstrating delivery moves. Below: Helen George (Trixie) at the maternity clinic.
(Top left © Popperfoto/Getty/Courtesy of Tower Hamlets Archive)
(Top right © We Are Laura)
(© We Are Laura)
Christine Walmesley-Cotham, Hair and Make-up Designer, with one of the life-like prosthetic babies.
(Left © Tower Hamlets Archives)
(Right © We Are Laura)
THE MEDICAL BAG
BEING A FIFTIES’ MIDWIFE REQUIRED COMPASSION, MEDICAL KNOW-HOW AND MUSCLE-POWER. THE BROWN LEATHER CASE TAKEN TO EVERY DELIVERY BY THE MIDWIVES WEIGHED AT LEAST AS MUCH AS A LUSTY NEWBORN. SO WHAT WAS INSIDE WEIGHING IT DOWN?
(© We Are Laura)
FIGURE
