In its 15th season, unlikely phenomenon Call the Midwife hasn't slowed down: Season 16 is already confirmed, as are a feature film and a WWII-era prequel series. Plenty of babies still need to be born, it would seem.

Initially set in 1957, with the current plots entering the 1970s, the show takes place in and around Poplar, London, one of the city's most desperately poor districts. As the National Health Service is born, secular trained midwives team up with the nuns of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent that had been in the business of providing medical care to the area's poor for decades. Though occasionally veering into schmaltz, the show's melodrama is generally well-earned, often dealing frankly with issues of women's health that other shows are still too timid to broach. If you've already plowed through all the available episodes, here are 10 more series with similar themes.

The Bletchley Circle (2012 – 2014)

Starting, like Call the Midwife, in the, mid-1950s, this series follows the women (mostly) who worked at the Bletchley Park estate during World War II. The workforce was charged operating cryptographic machinery and translating documents—essential code-breaking work that was largely forgotten by history, buried under heavy classification. This show isn't exactly about those events, though, instead focusing on a group of four women who reunite several years later to use their skills to hunt a serial killer. It's a juicy way to connect with the real story of women who served the war effort with a juicy plot, and the verisimilitude is legit—the show draws contrasts between the women's lives during wartime and their more domestic expectations once it was all over. Stream The Bletchley Circle on Peacock and Prime Video.

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The Bletchley Circle (2012 – 2014)

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All Creatures Great and Small (2020 – )

An update of a venerable British franchise based on a series of autobiographical novels from writer James Herriot, All Creatures takes us back to the rural Yorkshire Dales of the 1930s and '40s (as the series progresses into World War II and beyond), with a Scottish vet (Nicholas Ralph) moving to the small farming town of Darrowby to take up a job as a veterinary assistant. Animals are in jeopardy on a weekly basis, but the big-hearted show only rarely goes for the gut punch—favoring instead lots of baby cows and cameos from local pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo. Anna Madeley's housekeeper Audrey Hall and Rachel Shenton's farmer Helen keep the often-struggling practice together. It's not quite the human drama of Call the Midwife, though it does deal with some real challenges of the era. Stream All Creatures Great and Small on Prime Video and PBS.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020 – )

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Land Girls (2009 – 2011)

Stepping back a few years into World War II proper, the subject here is another less-well-remembered bit of history: The Women's Land Army, and the "Land Girls" who signed up to learn about farming and agriculture in order to replace male farmworkers who'd gone off to fight. Here, four very different women, with very different reasons for signing up, arrive at the farm on the Hoxley estate in order to serve their country, but also to figure out what they want out of life. Like the best shows of its kind, Land Girls also deals with issues contemporary to women of the era, as in the very first episode when the women are confronted by segregation among the American soldiers with whom they come into contact. Stream Land Girls on PBS or buy it from Prime Video.

Land Girls (2009 – 2011)

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Grantchester (2014 – )

In 1950s and '60s Cambridgeshire, Robson Green plays overworked, cynical WWII-veteran police detective Geordie Keating, while James Norton, Tom Brittney, and Rishi Nair (in succession) play well-meaning but occasionally straying local priests who help solve the inevitable string of murders. While generally adhering to the cozy mystery-of-the-week format, the show occasionally dives into heavy relationship drama as well as some real-world drama, often involving Al Weaver's curate Leonard Finch, who struggles with the clerical and legal ramifications of being gay. Stream Grantchester on Netflix and PBS.

Grantchester (2014 – )

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Virgin River (2019 – )

It's not late 20th century London, but rather contemporary Northern California, but we still get some of Call the Midwife's life-affirming charm alongside modern midwifery. Virgin River stars Alexandra Breckenridge as Mel, a nurse practitioner and midwife who finds unexpected complications when she moves to the title Northern California town on a one-year contract. That was seven romantic seasons ago, s you have years' worth of high-end comfort viewing to enjoy. Stream Virgin River on

10 Shows Like 'Call the Midwife' You Should Watch Next