© Rex Features / Ken McKay
The New Year's Eve plot will see Richie's character Alfie Moon discover that his newborn son has died. However, Alfie and Kat (Jessie Wallace) are unaware that Ronnie Mitchell has switched their babies.
The actor told The Mirror that he had taken to checking his 3-year-old daughter Lolita was okay.
"Christie had to tell me to leave Lolita alone," he said. "She said, 'You keep going in to see her'. And she was right."
He continued: "I found myself prodding her to make sure she was all right. In all my years of playing Alfie, I've never brought my work home with me - but now I have."
Samantha Womack has also spoken about filming the "horrific" scenes and confessed that she could not "stop crying".
