I once made a documentary for Channel 4 on the age of consent. I wanted to call it The Age Of Consent, but the channel wouldn’t have it. It had a policy, you see. Due to multi-channel competition, Channel 4 had decided that its programmes needed titles that told viewers exactly what they’d be getting. My programme was broadcast under the righteous moniker of Sex Under 16: How The Law Is Failing. Snappy, huh?

So, when presented with a Channel 4 documentary called Pramface Babies (tonight, C4, 9pm), what are we to think? For that title will have been argued about at Channel 4, make no mistake. It will have been discussed. Pramface Babies. This programme is about babies, with. . . pramfaces? What is that? Those of us who read Popbitch know that pramface is a derogatory name for young women who look like they’re destined to achieve nothing more in life than pushing a buggy. That’s what you mean when you call someone a pramface. But, for everyone who doesn’t operate in such rarified media circles (ie, most people) pramface means. . . nothing at all. It isn’t like chav, which has become a national term. It isn’t even like scally, ye olde term for working class Liverpudlians. And, as this documentary is about young Scouse women having babies, you’d think scally might have a chance.

But no. Pramface Babies it is. What a shame. What a rotten, snobby, sneering title for a decent documentary about birth, relationships, babies and young, young women. Laura, Linzi, Kerrie Ann and Krista are all in Liverpool Women’s Hospital, about to have (unplanned) babies. We see three of the births: they are moving, funny and amazing, as births are. And these new mums are moving, funny and amazing, as Northern women are. Not for them the buttoned-up euphemisms of propahly-brought-up young ladies. These girls say it how it is, with wit and intelligence. They are devoted to their babies. They hope their relationships will work out. But if they don’t, they’ll still have their children.

The director is not snobby about these women. She lets them speak, gives them time so that we can make up our minds about them, about their situations. (Personally, I found them both inspiring and frustrating.) They deserve a programme title that gives them the same respect. Why not just call it Underage Mums? Or is that too straightforward for the sniggering clever-clevers at Channel 4?