Last week’s The Hospital (Channel 4, Tuesday, 14 April, 9pm) saw the appalling state of affairs in the A&E departments of Britain. People getting hammered on sweet, fizzy booze and then yelling abuse at the doctor trying to stick stitches in their head. Hellish. However, last night’s episode was a much trickier proposition. Teenage pregnancies. Sure, mistakes have been made… but this issue is thornier than someone just wrecking their own liver. This issue involves new life and the complications that surround it. Also, what defines a young mother? The teenager is a fairly modern invention, as girls used to have kids in wedlock at young ages. So what’s the difference now?

Related: Episode One of The Hospital

People are at pains to point out that the UK has the highest number of teenage mothers in Europe. However, I get slightly irritated at that fact, because it implies that all of these teenagers are stupid and have made mistakes. I’ve known loads of great teenage mothers who planned it and… all that. Stupidity is not the sole property of the young. In fact, I know far more adults who worry me.

The maternal side of midwiffery sees great women in the hospitals fretting and worrying about the young girls that come through the swinging doors. After watching the show, it’s easy to see why the midwives are so frustrated and angered by some of the patients they face. However, the operative word in all of that is ‘some‘. This show wanted to highlight the rougher end of the spectrum. Those that don’t heed the genuine and sensible advice.

One girl featured, there but for the grace of a clogged artery, smoked her way through pregnancy, as well as chomping on Greggs pasties. The midwife, tellingly, said beforehand: “The worst thing you can do while pregnant? Smoke and get fat.” The same girl refused to get an injection to stop her from getting fatal blood clots. In a cheeky moment, the show quipped “What do you make of girls refusing injections… when they’ve got a face full of piercings?”

While some will have hurled abuse at the telly, that wasn’t the point of this brief moment of banter. “It’s not glamorous… it’s not lying on the beach having the waves wash over you… it’s ‘labour’ because it’s painful,” underlines one midwife. Wretched too. As a bloke, I can’t even begin to imagine how anyone would say that childbirth is a beautiful experience. A midwife once told me that the equivalent for me, would be to trying pissing a tangerine. Except with loads of backache and possible tearing. Oh, and so much of your brain power diverted, that you feel like you’ve lost your marbles. Which is why it’s staggering to think that some people wilfully add complications to the experience.

That said, being a bloke, I have absolutely no idea what the fear is like for a pregnant woman… or, the mounting and terrifying horror that can dwell in a pregnant teenager. It’s easy to judge young girls who are carrying a baby, by sneering about their council houses or whatever, but more than anyone, they need the help of the community.

Hooting middle class Earth Mothers aren’t the people we need to worry about (yet).

Sure, they’ve made a conscious decision to have a baby at the ‘right’ time with the man of their dreams… but life is so rarely like that. The hospital staff and team of brilliant midwives are reasonable in their complaints and frustrations… but no-one else should be chipping in. There’s a little child there that needs to be given more chances than their mother got… and snobbish attitudes aren’t going to help. Education, yes… haranguing, never.

And that’s the point of this story. Many will chastise the young mothers, when really, we should be applauding the people who help them, advise them and guide them through the most demanding time of their lives. If you can get past the angle of the show, which is to worry you daft about the future of our young people, you’ll find a lot to kindness and heart.