This episode really hit home for me because I had patent ductus arteriosus as a young child, and had corrective surgery in California in 1963, two years before the time that this episode was supposed to be taking place. I was 6 when I had the surgery, so my case might not have been as severe as portrayed in the episode, and I imagine neonatal surgery was a much greater risk/less of a possibility in 1963. My mother did not have rubella, and we never knew why I had pda. It is not something you hear much about, so I was really surprised to see a storyline about it on Call the Midwife, and such a sad one at that (since I was just a little kid, it did not make that big of an impression on me that this was a serious issue, but I now think about what my poor parents were going through with me, and the Kennedy assassination going on at the same time!).
