A Bradford hospital consultant is urging people to think about the Millennium bug before being tempted into making babies for the year 2000.

The comments came from John Clayton, head of service for obstetrics and gynaecology at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

He was reacting to news that Yorkshire Television is planning a series in early April to get people in the mood, nine months before January 1, 2000.

He said the programme-makers were guilty of "idiotic, irresponsible nonsense" and said "encouraging a bulge of deliveries at that time would be one monumental headache".

The YTV series will chart the success of ten couples trying for babies in late March and a follow-up documentary will watch the births on New Year's Day.

Mr Clayton said the Millennium bug posed such a worry to his staff, they have been practising how to monitor babies manually and would not be taking any time off work over the New Year, just in case.

"We are hoping for the quietest New Year's Day we can possibly have. Delivery suites are full of technology.

"We have absolutely no idea what is going to happen over that period," he said.

"What if the power fails? I am not scaremongering but when we are talking and thinking about mothers' lives, we cannot afford to not take it seriously.

"We hope it will be the biggest non-event of all time but we have to think of the worst scenario and be prepared for equipment failure and power failure and so on."

He said the programme was "desperately bad news".

"We have been working on this for over a year and for some idiotic nonsense to come up like this is ridiculous. It could produce extra stress and strain on the department which may be having difficulties anyway."

A YTV spokesman said that criticism had been overly serious when the programmes were intended to be light-hearted.

She said all those involved in the filming had intended to have babies at that time anyway.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.