The BBC has announced that Call the Midwife is returning for three more series AND three more Christmas specials.

Series 7, 8 and 9 will each consist of eight 60-minute episodes and, of course, their own festive editions - and they'll take the nuns and midwives right into the mid-1960s.

Heidi Thomas - creator, writer and executive producer of the show - said: "I am hugely excited by the prospect of creating three more series of Call the Midwife.

Neal Street Productions / Des Willie BBC

"In the 1960s, Britain was a country fizzing with change and challenge, and there is so much rich material - medical, social, and emotional - to be explored.

"We have now delivered well over 100 babies on screen, and like those babies, the stories keep on coming!"

Call the Midwife will take the staff of Nonnatus House to South Africa for an unconventional Christmas this year, airing on Christmas Day on BBC One.

Miranda Hart got a lot of telly fans excited when she announced she'd be back on Call the Midwife this Christmas, but… actually, it turns out she won't be.

BBC Pictures

"News: it's with a heavy heart that having shared Chummy's return to CTM, I've not been able to birth (pun) the schedule to make it work. xx," she wrote.

It's not all bad though - Dame Harriet Walter is heading to the East End's Nonnatus House for the sixth series of Call the Midwife, following the heartbreaking death of Pam Ferris's Sister Evangelina.

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