The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986 was caused by the explosion of Reactor 4 in the now-infamous power plant in northern Ukraine. It caused a radiation fallout 400 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb and is considered the worst nuclear accident in history. In the historical drama miniseries, firefighter Vasily Ignatenko rushed to the nuclear power plant after the disaster to help control the explosion, and ended up suffering severe radiation poisoning.
He was taken to hospital and his pregnant wife Lyudmilla was ordered not to touch him, but did so when the doctors were not looking.
Mr Ignatenkso died 14 days after the incident but the effects of the radiation also affected their unborn child.
When his wife gave birth, the baby survived for just four hours as it had absorbed much of the radiation its mother exposed herself to.
However, this baby was not the only one to be harmed by radiation poisoning after the Chernobyl disaster.
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A 2009 study found that babies who were exposed to radioactive iodine in the womb after the Chernobyl catastrophe had an increased risk of developing thyroid cancer in the next 20 years.
Previous studies had also linked thyroid cancer to radioactive iodine from Chernobyl.
Dr Maureen Hatch from the National Cancer Institute in Rockyville, Maryland, and colleagues evaluated the risks of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases in children born to mothers who were pregnant at the time of the accident compared to children of mothers who became pregnant when the fallout was no longer present.
They used a sample size of 1,494 exposed babies to 1,088 non-exposed babies.
Screening revealed six cases of thyroid cancer and one precancer in the contaminated group, compared with one case of thyroid cancer in the other group.
The report, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, concluded that each unit of radioactivity exposure increased the risk of thyroid cancer about 11-fold.
Dr Hatch said: “I would like to do an additional screening of the population in 3-5 years time to see if the number of cases increases.”
She added that a take-home message was to be “extremely cautious” about the medical use of the radioactive isotope iodine-131 to treat an overactive thyroid in pregnant women.
According to a 2016 World Health Organisation report, national studies in the three affected countries found more than 11,000 thyroid cancer cases had been diagnosed in children and adolescents living in the most affected regions.
Other forms of cancer are still being investigated.
Express.co.uk spoke to Magdalena Ines Kmiecik from Poland, whose whole family suffered from various forms of cancer after the Chernobyl disaster.
She firmly believes it must be related.
Ms Kmiecik said: “Why my family? Why are there so many people from my generation in Poland who have cancers?
“I started doing some research and found many theories on the internet – people who are having enormous health issues, just like my family.
“This just wasn’t the case before Chernobyl happened.
“People weren’t dying of cancer and related issues in such big numbers. It must be related!”