The Keith Cheggers Podcast

The Keith Cheggers Podcast is a pregnancy recorded as it happens, with each episode named for the week Hannah Norris has reached. She hosts with her husband, Carl Donnelly, and neither of them claims to have the answers. That is the premise. By their own account they began knowing next to nothing, and the episodes chart how that changes. Some episodes feature only the two of them, reporting back on antenatal classes, scans, the books they have been passing between them and the small purchases that suddenly seem essential, such as a whisper-quiet baby nail file. Others bring in a guest with experience to trade. Josh Howie talks about the role of the birth partner. Monique Howie, a child psychotherapist, compares how different pregnancies and babies can be, and Viv Groskop shares what she has gathered from researching and writing about pregnancy and birth. The conversations also make room for harder material: Sara Barron on the anxieties of IVF, Caroline Mabey on a previous miscarriage, and Sarah Niles and Felicity Ward on postnatal depression. Hannah's mum, Angela, appears for a gender reveal, and Dana Miltins, Hannah's best friend since they were twelve, compares a very different pregnancy. Bodies are discussed plainly. Colostrum harvesting, reverse pressure massage, pelvic floor exercises timed by an NHS app and the mechanics of latching all get specific, practical airtime. The pandemic arrives partway through the pregnancy. The couple travel to Melbourne, return to a locked-down London and watch the prospect of a home birth recede, while guests such as Katie Mulgrew and Hatty Ashdown join from a distance. In 'Week 38 with a Very Special Guest' the birth story arrives, taking in a water-birth pool room on an NHS labour ward complete with shifting coloured lights, along with a frank account of pushing positions and the birthing stool. Their daughter came two weeks ahead of the due date, so the numbering carries on past the birth. The later episodes become a running account of the fourth trimester: feeding troubles worked through with a consultant over Zoom, a tongue-tie check, sudden crying fits and the toll of broken sleep. Hannah and Carl even turn the tables and pass their newly earned know-how to Julie Jay, who is still pregnant and weighing up induction. Humour keeps all of it moving. The pair trade jokes, call themselves experts with a wink and still leave room for the detail that might actually help someone. It plays like a diary that has company.