Born Too Soon

I can't pick him up when I want to; I can't put him to bed when I want to." Sarah Sidwells looks through the side of the neo-natal intensivecare cot at her son Izaak, born at just 25 weeks weighing a minuscule 1lb 12oz. "He doesn't feel like my baby," she says.

On top of the worry of caring for an extremely premature baby whom doctors gave only a 50 percent chance of survival at birth, Sarah has the added stress of being in a hospital two hours from her home, which was the nearest available bed.

Around 40,000 British babies are born prematurely each year - the highest rate in Western Europe. This documentary follows two families around the country as they experience the traumas of premature birth, and talks to the medical staff involved, revealing that making room for kids born before term is as much of an issue as caring for them.

Cameras also track the progress of another Sarah, Sarah Middleton, who is surprised to discover that her third child will in fact be triplets. Multiple births are always early, but a worry over one of the babies' development means that Sarah has to undergo an emergency Caesarean.

What lifts this film above your bog-standard whispered-commentary-and-anguished-faces medical documentary is its combination of the real-life stories of the pregnant women and the views of the hospital staff, who face a daily struggle to accommodate the ever-growing number of premature babies.

It also doesn't skimp on the bodily fluids; watching Sarah M's Caesarean will probably precipitate cries of "eeeuuw" from more sensitive viewers. But those noises will be replaced with a flood of "aw, bless" when the tiny, tiny infants grace the screen.