Coronation Street‘s Channique Sterling-Brown has spoken about how she prepared for her character Dee-Dee Bailey’s dramatic baby scenes.

Dee-Dee is pregnant with the baby of Joel Deering, her evil fiancé who died last year. Due to the baby likely being a match for the stem cell transplant Lauren’s baby Frankie needs, Dee Dee decided to go through with the birth before giving the baby up for adoption.

However, there will be some complications next week as a series of events leads to her undergoing a hysterectomy.

Speaking to Digital Spy and other press, Sterling-Brown explained how she got herself ready for the scenes, given that she hasn’t given birth herself and therefore doesn’t have the first-hand experience to draw on.

“I watched One Born Every Minute and loads of TikTok vlogs, which was really interesting,” the actor said.

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“I asked all my friends and my aunties. What I really loved about this is that I’ve had a chance to really connect with a lot of women in my life. And also women in the cast as well.

“Dee-Dee has some great conversations with women in the show too throughout the story, which I’ve really loved. Because you just garner that knowledge, don’t you? And a generational knowledge as well, which is great.

“Other than that, to be honest it was just a case of doing it. I remember on New Year, we went away – me and my friends and my sister. My sister’s got a dog and I was showing my friends that I was anxious about doing the labour. They were like: ‘Let’s just practice now, let’s just role-play’

“So we role-played it and my sister’s Labrador was so worried about me, it was so cute! He was all over me and was like: ‘Why are you lot not doing anything?!’ He spent the rest of the night leaning on me because I was doing all these pain noises! So if I convinced the dog, it’ll be alright, that’s the main thing!”

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Once Dee-Dee has given birth, she will wonder if the mistakes made at the hospital were due to her being treated differently as a Black woman, and the soap has worked with Birthrights, Motivational Mums Club and Five X More on the storyline.

Dee Dee also agreed to give her baby to her brother James, who intends to raise her in America with partner Danny. But will she still be okay with that idea after giving birth?