10 Feb '10

“For anyone who hasn’t been through the ordeal, the series authentically captures what it’s like to be a mere spectator – a combination of long stretches of anxious tedium concluded by a rush of overwhelming (and largely unearned) emotion.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“Provided you watch it with a certain amount of detachment – a detachment you might not be able to muster if you’re about to have a baby or have just had one – it’s quite fascinating viewing.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“Every delivery of a child is dramatis but these cameras recorded some real plums… Channel 4 has got eight episodes out of its stay in Princess Anne’s. So far the dilations have been delightful.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“It was all done sensibly and sensitively and so on but you had to wonder why they’d mucked about with the traditional format…Watching Ms Frost fronting psychological test wand playing Trinny and Susannah to teenage girls was plain weird.”
Matt Baylis, Daily Express

“This is really more about entertainment than anything else… It seems naïve to think that a bad parent can be turned into a good parent over the course of an hour of entertaining television. Or that a little girl’s self-esteem can be sorted out by a glamorous day in London.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Frost’s quick fixes are more attractive in retrospect than in their practice, where they make unpalatably judgemental television.”
Andrew Billen, The Times

“A reminder – if it was needed – that the pain doesn’t necessarily stop when the baby is delivered.”
Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent

“I’m not sure it’s a good think that they’re not suggesting that there are any quick-fix solutions, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a feeling that there will ever be a solution, either.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“The latest and perhaps best of the BBC’s Being Mum season.”
Andrew Billen, The Times