Call the Midwife: Comfort Television as Historical Education
Call the Midwife has been a Sunday night staple since its first broadcast in 2012. Based on the memoirs of former nurse and midwife Jennifer Worth (née Lee, as per the TV series); the show begins in 1957 and follows her experiences working in London’s East End. Through the lens of community midwifery and district nursing, the programme offers a dramatised portrayal of post-war Britain and the early years of the National Health Service.
Progressing year by year, Call the Midwife educates audiences about history and traces wider social and cultural changes taking place across Britain during the late 1950s, through the 1960s and the early 1970s. It operates as emotionally engaging comfort television. What begins in the aftermath of war times gradually develops into a portrait of a society undergoing significant transformations in healthcare, women’s rights, family life and social attitudes.
One of the most significant educational aspects of Call the Midwife is the way it introduces audiences to histories of women’s healthcare that are often absent from mainstream education. Through emotionally engaging storytelling and storylines surrounding childbirth, contraception, miscarriage, infertility, abortion, and reproductive health care, the series exposes viewers to both the medical realities and social stigmas – such as trauma, poverty, disability, and social inequality.
Educational Value of Call the Midwife
Call the Midwife introduces audiences to the social and medical realities of East End London after the war. Spanning from 1957 to 1971, the series charts a period of significant change within British society, particularly in relation to healthcare, women’s rights, and the development of the National Health Service. Through long-form storytelling, viewers witness the gradual transformation of maternity care, changing attitudes towards contraception and abortion, and the increasing medicalisation of childbirth across the 1960s.
Alongside these wider developments, the programme also explores major historical events and social issues that are often absent from mainstream education. Storylines surrounding thalidomide, infectious disease outbreaks, disability, poverty, and the lasting psychological impact of the Second World War expose audiences to the complexities of everyday life during the period. Dr Turner’s own experiences as a veteran of the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War remain largely a mystery to the viewer, with glimpses of his history revealed gradually throughout the series. His wartime service begins to emerge more explicitly during Series 3, as he and Shelagh go through the process of adopting Angela, while later storylines reveal more about the psychological impact of these experiences and his subsequent psychiatric treatment. His experiences provide insight into symptoms that would now likely be recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder, highlighting how trauma and mental health were understood in the decades following the war. Further aspects of Dr Turner’s earlier life may become clearer in the forthcoming prequel series, Sisters in Arms, which is set to feature a younger version of the character.
One of the most significant educational contributions of Call the Midwife is its portrayal of women’s health, on top of topics that have historically been underrepresented or simplified within formal education. While these issues are often discussed clinically or politically in public discourse, Call the Midwife instead presents them through personal stories and lived experiences, humanising the emotional realities surrounding women’s healthcare during this particular time period.
Part of the programme’s educational value may also lie in its intergenerational appeal. As someone who began watching Call the Midwife with my grandmother during its original Sunday evening broadcasts, the series became more than simply entertainment. Episodes often prompted conversations about everyday life during the period, including healthcare, schooling, gender expectations, and social attitudes. The programme therefore creates opportunities for shared cultural reflection, allowing younger audiences to learn about the era whilst older viewers revisit or contextualise their own experiences. Even outside of new broadcasts, constant repeats on channels such as Drama reinforce the programme’s role as a familiar and recurring cultural presence across generations.
Importantly, the educational value of these narratives lies not only in the historical information they communicate, but also in the emotional engagement they create. Rather than presenting women’s health as abstract medical history, the series encourages audiences to empathise with the women experiencing these challenges. Through long-form storytelling and recurring characters, viewers witness the personal, social, and emotional impact of healthcare inequalities in ways that feel immediate and deeply human.
Alongside its historical focus, Call the Midwife also shapes contemporary understandings of healthcare and care work. Although set between the late 1950s and early 1970s, many of the issues explored within the programme continue to resonate with modern audiences, particularly in relation to public healthcare, pressures on medical services, and the emotional realities of caring professions. In the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, public conversations surrounding the NHS and healthcare workers have become increasingly prominent, and Call the Midwife offers audiences a way of reflecting on these themes through a historical lens. At the same time, the programme also exposes audiences to the limitations and pressures facing the early NHS. Staff shortages, inadequate housing, poverty, overcrowding, and unequal access to healthcare are recurring themes throughout the series. While these storylines are historically situated, they often feel strikingly contemporary, encouraging viewers to reflect on ongoing debates surrounding healthcare provision and social inequality within Britain today. Through this, Call the Midwife demonstrates how historical drama can shape not only understandings of the past, but also conversations about the present.
One of the programme’s strengths is the way it humanises healthcare workers rather than presenting medicine as purely institutional. Midwives, nurses, and doctors are portrayed not simply as medical professionals, but as members of a wider community who build long-term relationships with the people they support. The series repeatedly emphasises emotional labour, compassion, exhaustion, and the personal sacrifices involved in care work, highlighting healthcare as something deeply human rather than solely clinical or procedural. However, part of the programme’s educational power may lie precisely in the fact that audiences do not approach it as education.
Comfort TV Educational Aspects
Through these narratives, Call the Midwife encourages audiences to reflect not only on historical attitudes towards disability and illness, but also on the wider social structures that shape inclusion and exclusion. By embedding these issues within emotionally familiar and trusted storytelling, the programme demonstrates how comfort television can create meaningful engagement with subjects that are often overlooked or misunderstood within wider media culture.
This sense of comfort may also make the programme particularly effective as a form of informal learning. Because audiences are emotionally invested in the characters and narratives, difficult social issues become more accessible and engaging. Storylines surrounding domestic abuse, poverty, racism, disability, miscarriage, abortion, addiction, and mental health are introduced not through detached historical explanation, but through personal stories and long-term character development. As a result, viewers are encouraged to emotionally connect with experiences and perspectives that may otherwise feel distant from their own lives.
In this sense, Call the Midwife can be understood as operating through a form of hidden curriculum. While the series is not designed as an educational programme in the traditional sense, it still communicates values, attitudes, and social understandings through its storytelling. Audiences are not only learning about historical events or medical developments, but are also exposed to ideas surrounding empathy, community responsibility, healthcare inequality, and attitudes towards marginalised groups. These lessons emerge gradually through repeated viewing and emotional engagement rather than direct instruction.
The programme’s status as comfort television may therefore strengthen, rather than weaken, its educational value. The familiarity of the series creates a space in which audiences are more willing to engage with complex or emotionally difficult subjects. Viewers may initially return to the programme for reassurance or nostalgia, yet in doing so they are also repeatedly engaging with wider discussions surrounding healthcare, gender, class, trauma, and social change. This demonstrates how television drama can simultaneously entertain and educate, challenging assumptions that comfort viewing is culturally or intellectually passive.
As someone living with chronic pain, Call the Midwife has become one of the programmes I return to repeatedly, particularly during periods where my body is “not cooperating.” Like many forms of comfort television, its familiarity provides reassurance during difficult moments. Yet what makes the series particularly interesting is that this comfort exists alongside emotionally complex and socially significant storytelling. Even during rewatches, the programme continues to prompt reflection on healthcare, inequality, trauma, disability, and social attitudes, demonstrating how comfort viewing can still encourage active engagement with difficult subjects. The series is widely associated with comfort television: programmes that viewers return to for familiarity, emotional reassurance, and a sense of routine. Its Sunday evening scheduling, recurring characters, warm visual style, and strong emphasis on community and compassion all contribute to its identity as a comforting and emotionally safe form of viewing.
Part of the emotional impact of Call the Midwife also lies in its representation of disability, chronic illness, and accessibility. Across its fifteen series, the programme has repeatedly explored how disabled individuals were often marginalised within post-war British society, particularly in relation to healthcare, education, and social attitudes. Rather than presenting disability solely through tragedy or pity, the series frequently centres disabled characters within wider community narratives, encouraging audiences to engage with their experiences as part of everyday life.
One of the programme’s most significant long-form disability storylines involves Susan Mullucks, who is born with limb differences linked to her mother Rhoda’s use of thalidomide during pregnancy. Through the experiences of Susan and her family, the series explores the devastating impact of the thalidomide scandal on children and parents during the early 1960s. The storyline also expands beyond Susan’s individual experience, depicting Rhoda encountering other families and children affected by thalidomide and showing the emergence of a wider community of families navigating disability, medical care and social attitudes. Because audiences follow the storyline across multiple episodes and series, the narrative transforms what could have been a distant historical event into a deeply personal and emotional exploration of disability, healthcare, and parental fear. Through this, viewers are not simply informed about thalidomide as a historical scandal but encouraged to understand its long-term emotional and social consequences for families living through it.
The programme has also continued to explore disability representation in later series. The character of Reggie Jackson, who has Down syndrome and is portrayed by actor Daniel Laurie, who also has Down syndrome, provides an important example of authentic representation within mainstream television. Across the series, Reggie is developed as a rounded character with his own interests, relationships and routines, including his love of gardening. He is not treated as a background symbol of inspiration or pity, nor defined solely by his disability, but as a fully developed member of the community with friendships, emotions, humour, and independence.
More recently, the character of Andrew Trottwood, portrayed by Teddy Berriman, explored the educational barriers faced by disabled children during the period after contracting measles and becoming a wheelchair user. Storylines surrounding the removal of his transport provision highlighted how inaccessible systems could prevent disabled children from participating in education, an issue that continues to resonate within contemporary discussions surrounding accessibility and educational support.
Call the Midwife demonstrates how television drama can function as both entertainment and informal education. Through its long-form storytelling, historical setting, and emotionally engaging narratives, the programme introduces audiences to histories of healthcare, women’s rights, disability, poverty, and social inequality that are often overlooked within mainstream education. Rather than presenting these issues through detached historical facts, the series humanises them through personal experiences and recurring characters, encouraging viewers to develop emotional understanding alongside historical knowledge.
At the same time, the programme’s identity as comfort television strengthens its educational impact. The familiarity, warmth, and emotional reassurance associated with Call the Midwife create a space in which audiences may be more willing to engage with complex or difficult social issues. In this sense, the series operates through a form of hidden curriculum, subtly shaping attitudes surrounding empathy, healthcare, community, disability, and social responsibility through repeated viewing and emotional connection.
As a viewer with chronic pain, Call the Midwife is particularly significant because it demonstrates that comfort viewing is not necessarily passive or escapist. Even as a programme returned to for reassurance and familiarity, it continues to encourage reflection on healthcare inequalities, accessibility, trauma, and social change. Ultimately, Call the Midwife highlights the wider cultural power of television drama: not only to entertain audiences, but also to shape understanding, encourage empathy, and preserve important social histories through emotionally resonant storytelling.
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