Much of my midwifery work varies day to day. I meet many lovely families who welcome me into their homes and hearts to be their midwife. It’s a feeling I will never grow tired of. Midwifery is my heart and soul.

Over the last few of years I have had some great opportunities and been a part of some amazing experiences. How can midwifery get better than walking alongside families as they grow new life? Well, that tops it all hands down but I wanted to share with you something really exciting that I was a small part of in 2024 & 2025, cos it’s not your average day as a midwife for sure! I have shared snippets on my social media pages about these opportunities previously.

I had the opportunity to work with My Expert Midwife on a shoot of their new product launch last year and supported another family as their 2nd midwife with the fabulous Joy (Joyful birth) as their home birth was filmed for Teen Mum UK Next Generation (the lovely Chloe and baby Luca).

If that’s not exciting enough as a day in the life of a midwife, I was also invited onto a film set here in the North East, as the role of “Midwife Advisor”.

In June 2024 I received a surprising email completely out of the blue from a Patient Liaison Manager for a Medical Concierge company that works with the film industry.

I was told one of their clients were currently filming a “‘significant film production” in Sunderland and they were filming a birth scene the following week and they would have 2 x 6-day old babies on set for the scene.

They were looking for a Midwife to support the filming, specifically:

To advise on the birth scene so that it is technically accurate
To keep an eye on the babies’ welfare during filming

She said, “I appreciate this isn’t an everyday request” and “Do you by any chance have any availability”. Certainly not an everyday request but hell yes I’m available !! 😁

I was at that time, on call for babies due and my commitments to those families took precedence but this sounded like such an amazing opportunity that I was keen to be involved with and didn’t want to refuse. Luckily I was able to participate and my birthing families held off! It was soon confirmed it was for the film, 28 years later, even better as I’d loved the first films.

The first day on set I was taken to a trailer where I met lots of the production team and met the actress playing the infected pregnant person. She was having make up and prosthetics applied, very surreal just stood having a casual conversation about birth, birthing positions and the birth of the animatronic baby to make it look and sound as realistic as possible, as far as birthing zombies go!! No prior experience advising on the birth of a plastic baby but I’d give it my best shot! 🤣

As I’m stood chatting to the infected pregnant actress in her full infected looking make up and prosthetic naked pregnant attire, in walks Danny Boyle and Jodi Comer. Friendly introductions and hand shakes later, I was told they were very happy to have a midwife on set and started asking about my work and my opinion on the birthing scene they were proposing. Asking my opinion!!?? Totally surreal. I was asked about realistic birth sounds, how the “baby” should be born, what could they apply to the doll and the real life baby to make the bodily fluids look as realistic as possible and not irritate the baby’s skin. What was my life!

I was shown to the green room where I’d meet the babies and their parents that were going to play baby Isla in the film. I was shown around the set, which if you’ve seen the film you will know the birth scene takes place on an abandoned train carriage. The set up inside the old Nightingale Hospital in Sunderland was incredible. I met some of the other actors and production team and was given a brief of the story line around the birth scene and what they were hoping I was able to help with.

Debbie Hemmingway, on a film set with people I’d only seen on tv or heard about in the media, requesting my assistance! Again, so surreal 🤪😆

I met the lovely Jamie, who is baby Lachlans mum (who plays baby Isla) and who I’ve remained in contact with since. Little Lachlan was the perfect baby Isla and melted everyone’s hearts ♥️

A lot of the time I was on set, which was over a few days, was waiting around for when I was needed when Lachlan was on scene. Fascinating to watch everything going and how a film comes together. Medics were also on scene but I was asked to oversee the wellbeing of the new babies and new mums, just in case of any issues, so wherever baby Lachlan and his mum were, so was I. The scenes filmed with Jodi and baby Lachlan, Jamie and I were stood close by out of camera shot.

A very memorable moment I will remember forever which gave me and Jamie a giggle and our eyes pop out was the scene with Chi Lewis-Parry (who played the alpha leader Samson) running naked through the carriage chasing spike (Alfie Williams), with his very large prosthetic member swinging about just inches away from us!! Oh my!! Lived up to his name “‘chopper”! 😂

Another memorable moment was watching the birth scene back on the monitor on set and being asked what I thought. Noticing how the umbilical cord was just cut without being tied first, I said to Danny

“it’s really good as birthing zombies and animatronic babies go, however, if you want this to look as technically accurate as possible and the cord cutting scene will be left in, and if this baby is to live, you will need to tie the cord before cutting or baby will bleed out, in theory”

So they had to re shoot that scene after some discussion about what they could use as a tie that would be available on an abandoned carriageway and be realistic. If you saw the film, did you notice what they used? I saw that being made from scratch. A scene changed from my recommendation. Just give me a job in film 🤣😎

I was also contacted by the artistic director a couple of times at a later date asking me about other new babies that I knew of that would be a good match to baby Lachlan for other scenes they had to re shoot, when Lachlan was a bit bigger, so they would look like the same baby. I put forward some of my clients and their new babies who were interested. Lots of us who were involved in whatever way of the making of 28YL were invited to the Gala screening in June 2025 at the Tyneside Cinema to watch the movie in its glory, phenomenal! It was great to finally be able to watch the end product.

If you haven’t seen the film I was a teeny tiny part of, why not?! Go watch it!

Just your average day in the life of an independent midwife 😘😎🤩😊