Its core premise revolves around historical midwifery stories drawn from Jennifer Worth's memoirs, with episodes focusing on mental health struggles of new mothers, agoraphobia, prison births, adoption processes, natural childbirth techniques, and family crises like a curate's cricket date or a mother's terminal illness. Progressive elements appear incidentally through historical social issues, such as the Episode 2 plot of a white married woman pregnant by a black man after infidelity, resulting in adoption due to her husband's reaction, and the Episode 5 storyline of a young woman with Down's syndrome who is pregnant. These reflect documented attitudes and realities of the time rather than modern activist framing or identity politics as the narrative driver.