The BBC and Neal Street have announced that production has commenced on the fifteenth series of Call the Midwife, with a two-part Christmas Special set in Hong Kong and Poplar to be followed by eight new episodes on BBC One and iPlayer from January 2026.
The Christmas special sees senior Nonnatus House staff head to Hong Kong on a mercy mission, leaving younger midwives to cope alone. Sister Julienne, after years of battling change, decides to embrace it, and this shift in energy reverberates through the new series, which is set in 1971. Storylines include premature birth, placenta previa, kidney cancer, tuberculosis and slavery, alongside the ladies burning their bras in support of Women's Lib.
In a significant expansion, a prequel series set in Poplar during the Second World War will be made for the BBC in 2026, while a Call the Midwife film is in development with BBC Film, set overseas in 1972 and featuring iconic characters from the existing show.
Heidi Thomas OBE, creator and writer, said: "I have never run out of stories for our midwives, and I never will. But having wept, laughed, and raged my way from 1957 to 1971, I found myself yearning to delve into the deeper past." Executive producer Dame Pippa Harris DBE added that the expansion felt right given the show's continued popularity with both long-standing and newer audiences.
The new projects are written, created and produced by the all-female team behind the current series, including showrunner Heidi Thomas and executive producers Pippa Harris and Ann Tricklebank, who will also helm series 16. Further details about the prequel and film will be released later this year.
