The Master of the Rotunda Hospital has said staff were overwhelmed by the amount of people who wanted to take part in the hit show.
Professor Fergal Malone, who was appointed Master in 2016, admitted he was hesitant to allow cameras into his hospital at first for fear of appearing exploitive.
However, mid way through the second season on RTE, he said he is delighted with the positivity the hospital is receiving off the back of the series.
He told the Irish Daily Mirror: “We were very nervous initially and our management team here and our board we gave a lot of thought to whether we would do it or not.
“Because you are potentially protruding on a very private moment, a very special moment in any family. In particular when things don’t go back.
“But we were taken aback by the positivity shown by patients when we put word out initially that we were looking for families to participate.
“We had no idea if it would have been one or two that would volunteer or 20 or 30 but we were overwhelmed with people who said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll do that’.
Speaking at the Rotunda Hospital 2019 Charity Lunch, Professor Malone, who is a specialist in maternal-foetal medicine, added: “And we also needed to be confident that the production company Scratch TV would be sensitive to preserving patient dignity.
“We wanted to ensure that patients got final editorial control on everything so no shot of any couple or family goes out without them proving it and that gave confidence and comfort to families that they wouldn’t be exploited.
“And in particular when you have cases where something doesn’t go well or where a baby is going to die you have to be careful that that is not going to be seen in any way exploitive.
“But again by empowering families and involving them in the decisions to participate families said ‘no it is very important to get this story out there’.”
The professor of obstetrics and gynaecology added he hopes viewers will be able to take comfort in seeing pregnancy and any issues that may arise from it showcased in such a raw way on screen.
He said: “It’s an important public service education piece and for example one of the episodes coming up is really going to focus on things like postnatal depression, there are others with twins, episodes in which a baby has a congenital abnormality.
“These represent a very important public service education opportunity to show people that are faced with these situations that A, they can talk about it, B, other people have gone through this successfully and that there is somewhere you can go for information and to get care.”
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