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Nemone Lethbridge’s play Baby Blues on BBC television: maternal mental illness narratives, stigma and support in 1970s Britain
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Creed, Fabiola (2024) Nemone Lethbridge’s play Baby Blues on BBC television: maternal mental illness narratives, stigma and support in 1970s Britain. Women's History Review . doi:10.1080/09612025.2024.2327895 ISSN 0961-2025.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2024.2327895
Abstract
In December 1973, the BBC aired Nemone Lethbridge’s auto-fictional play Baby Blues as one of their influential ‘Play for Today’ (PfT) series (1970–1984). This article explores the impact of Lethbridge’s controversial television play, which drew attention to taboo topics, such as infertility, caesarean section childbirth, infanticide, suicide, and, separately, motherhood ageism and dismissive medical professionals. It will illustrate how Lethbridge’s play Baby Blues was part of a broader change in discussing maternal mental illness and creating support for women experiencing postnatal depression and psychosis, instigated by the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM). The article situates Baby Blues within the wider history of the PfT series, with its focus on socio-political issues, and highlights the challenges Lethbridge faced in bringing the play to production. It analyses the mixed responses to the play, many of which were critical, and how this led to Lethbridge’s launching of a grass-roots self-help group, Depressives Anonymous (DA), in 1974, which was—and still is—a long-lasting legacy of Baby Blues. The article builds on the history of maternal mental illness as explored in women’s narratives and its association with stigma, support and feminism, alongside the British Broadcasting Corporation’s television series PfT, in 1970s Britain.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Subjects: | R Medicine > RG Gynecology and obstetrics | ||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > History > Centre for the History of Medicine | ||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Lethbridge, Nemone. Baby Blues, Postpartum depression, Infertility, Female, Women -- Health and hygiene, Post-traumatic stress disorder | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Women's History Review | ||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
ISSN: | 0961-2025 | ||||||
Official Date: | 15 March 2024 | ||||||
Dates: |
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DOI: | 10.1080/09612025.2024.2327895 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 12 April 2024 | ||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 16 April 2024 | ||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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