{"id":465232,"date":"2026-03-09T03:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T03:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/465232\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T03:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T03:13:10","slug":"a-reminder-of-what-happened-to-susan-as-her-family-prep-to-fight-for-thalidomide-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/465232\/","title":{"rendered":"A reminder of what happened to Susan, as her family prep to fight for Thalidomide victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call the Midwife’s<\/a> final season 15 episode will air this evening on BBC One, and will focus on the potential closure on Nonnatus House, Sister Veronica (Rebecca Gethings) deciding where she wants her future to lie and The Mullucks’ fight for all Thalidomide victims, including their beloved daughter Susan (Emily Webb). <\/p>\n

Susan and her family have been prominent characters in the series for nearly 10 series, after her birth was shown in season five. Since then she and her family have popped up multiple times throughout Call the Midwife<\/a>, as they share updates on Susan’s condition, after she was born without her legs and arms properly developing, due to her mother taking prescribed medication Thalidomide. <\/p>\n

And in season 15 we’ve been reunited with the family, as her parents Rhoda (Liz White) and Bernie (Chris Reilly) struggle with problems of their own, and the return of their eldest daughter who has been keeping a rather large secret. <\/p>\n

The final episode is expected to see the family continue to campaign for those who have suffered due to Thalidomide. But what actually happened to Susan? Here’s your reminder on her and her family.<\/p>\n

What happened to Susan in Call the Midwife? <\/p>\n

The character of Susan was born in season 5, in 2016, and after she was delivered by her mother Rhoda, Nurse Mount (Emerald Fennell) noticed Susan’s legs and arms hadn’t properly developed during her time in the womb and she was immediately taken away as the nurses were worried she was going to die. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and Susan has continued to live a happy life. <\/p>\n

As the show progressed it became apparent Susan’s birth defects were a result of a drug which contained Thalidomide, which Rhoda was prescribed during her pregnancy for help with morning sickness. <\/p>\n

Susan’s story mirrors what really happened back in the 1960s, where’s it’s thought that over 10,000 babies born across 46 countries were born with birth defects due to the drug. <\/p>\n

Call the Midwife’s creator Heidi Thomas has been transparent in the importance of including this storyline, saying in 2022: “When it became known publicly that we were going to do the Thalidomide story, I think it made me realise in a way the power of Call The Midwife.<\/p>\n

“Also, the responsibility of Call The Midwife, because we were expected to do this story well by the people whose story we were telling. The Thalidomide community have an informal saying – nothing about us without us.”<\/p>\n

During Call the Midwife we go onto watch Susan be given prosthetic limbs and the internal battle her father Bernie goes on in accepting his daughter. <\/p>\n

The most recent episode of the series saw the family welcome a new downstairs conversion, which was meant to aid Susan in getting around the house more. However, this was soon overshadowed by her mother’s illness and the return of her older sister, who has been hiding her pregnancy from the family. <\/p>\n

Tonight’s episode is expected to see the family continue to fight for the rights of Susan and others who have been impacted by Thalidomide. <\/p>\n

Call the Midwife is available on BBC iPlayer now <\/p>\n

Related Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call the Midwife’s final season 15 episode will air this evening on BBC One, and will focus on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[150531,379,166836,381,96,1156,166835,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-465232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-collection-tv","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-a8a3709d-c007-4974-8540-233482ccaf3a","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-a-reminder-of-susans-story-in-call-the-midwife","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}