To agree with this article about issues with the NCT and their focus on ‘natural births’

Completely agree. I joined an NCT class purely to meet other mums in my area and for that it was amazing as I made some lovely and supportive mum friends that I'm still close with two years on, but the course itself was completely rubbish, as I knew it would be. 8 out of 10 in our class were having planned c sections but the course leader still focussed almost entirely on natural birth, promoting less interventions and actively encouraging us to advocate for that (eg 'you have a right to refuse an induction even over 40 weeks'...yes, you do but how about explaining the risks to the baby at that point not to mention trained doctors possibly know better), which is quite frankly dangerous in my opinion. The pro-breastfeeding push and refusal to discuss formula feeding also pissed me off even though I planned to, and did, breastfeed my baby - not everyone can or wants to do this and the judgement is unhelpful and unnecessary. Anyway, maternity services in the UK are a disgrace in general, it's truly like being in a third world country and as a non-Brit, I can't understand why the general population is so accepting of these poor standards (and of the NHS in general but that's a whole other post!)

Yes my NCT experience 9 years ago was absolutely toxic. I had a planned c-section and was told how horrible that would be so I stopped going. Actually the deciding factor was that I was so stressed in the class that I started having contractions 😂I skipped the remaining sessions. The only benefit was connecting with the group, we are still friends.

16 years ago but my experience was very positive. I tried homebirth (for 17 hours) then ended up with an emergency c section when it went wrong. As we had our baby first NCT welcomed us to tell our story to the rest of the group and supported all the groups choices. I don't recall any horror stories about epidurals or any antipathy towards those who decided not to breast feed. We made great friends for life and felt prepared for all eventualities.

The medics I know opted for electives which I found telling.

OP, I didn’t do NCT but I did do a very popular hypnobirthing course. Despite knowing how lucky I was to have a healthy baby at the end of a birth which very much didn’t go to plan, I still struggle with what was at the time a profound sense of failure. I believe the course I did definitely contributed to this. If I’m lucky enough to do it again, I’ll also be having an elective.

A crochet boob! I used to knit twiddle muffs for dementia patients at my local hospital - they soon asked me to knit boobs too - apparently they were always short of them for BF-ing instruction sessions!

Yes!! I was the only one in my group who had a planned c-section coming up and the lady who ran this put the fear of god into me!!!

Yes ours was very hippy dippy a few years back. I myself am actually pretty hippy drippy myself but it made no sense to me. Being hippy dippy is going with the flow. Not trying to force through a natural birth. Totally bizarre. Put me off so much I planned a C 🤣

The only thing we did on C was to watch a movie of a C-section where the baby came out blue and non breathing. That was quite terrifying. But in our section our babe did come out very blue looking and took a moment to cry; so in hindsight DP was pleased about that video. He said without it he may have thought kiddo was dead and fainted 🫣

I went to a wedding a few years ago, one of the bridesmaids had just given birth 3 weeks before. The bridesmaids were being presented with gifts and this woman was missing so I went to go find her. She was sort of secretly bottle feeding near a bush away from the reception. I went to go tell her they were giving out gifts and she startled and started trying to explain she breastfed "most of the time", like I'd caught her doing something wrong. It was a horrible few seconds and I remembered feeling like that when I couldn't breastfeed my first child. Turned out she was part of a not-completely-supportive NCT group.

Looks like we were lucky with our group as we were given very fair and balanced information about C-sections, bottle feeding etc and never felt pressured one way or the other. It obviously depends very much on your group leader! We all made friends with the other parents and still meet up as a group four years later so for us it was 100% worth doing.

Would agree that the Positive Birth Company course was more problematic - found the suggestions for the first stage of labour helpful but all that stuff about the second stage was quite frankly total bollocks and didn't take into account that for some women it is extremely painful regardless of how much you try and relax!

We had a whole session on Breastfeeding- fine.
When a group member asked for advice about sterilising bottles for formula, we were told "I can only tell you about breastfeeding, I'm not allowed to talk about bottle feeding"
We both felt ashamed when breastfeeding didn't work for us and this certainly didn't help. This was 7 years ago.

I wouldn’t go near them as I had heard about their ‘breasapo’ approach and I was adamant that I would not breast feed. I would never feel bad for this choice but I cba with having people trying to change my mind when I have been secure in that decision my whole life!

Its tricky. Mine did a good job of talking about medical interventions, why they may be needed and what could be done to ensure you still felt in control and informed.

Its finding a balance because I found the crunchy stuff a refreshing change from the constant, "its awful, you just have to suffer" "No medals, get an epidural", horror story after horror story. These stories are so important, we shouldn't go into it naive but I had such a scared and negative outlook.

In the end I did love my birth. Back to back baby but water birth with gas and air. A large, large part of that was pure damn luck but I felt informed, I knew what was going on, I didn't panic, I was able to advocate for myself and my husband had tools to support me. Im genuinely looking forward to doing it again.

The biggest factor though was my incredible midwife who was experienced, calm and confident. When she thought the baby was in a bad position a week earlier she had no problem talking to me about c sections, she wasnt evangelical and it was continuity of care so she knew me.

Charities, these groups are a red herring, we should be able to look and find support as we want. What we need is to support our midwives. Pay them properly, work life balance to encourage more into the field, free training and ongoing professional development. That's whatll make the difference.

I had completely the opposite experience of NCT. Horrendous first birth so joined NCT when pregnant second time round. They helped me come to terms with my 1st experience and gave me the tools to manage my 2nd delivery very positively.

and you only have to
look at the mother/baby death rates in previous centuries to see that we very often NEED intervention. It's supposed to be natural but very often isn't.

totally agree. My eldest daughter is almost 25. When I was pregnant, I spoke with an NCT local group leader via email and social
media and she was ruthlessly fixated
on natural birth and breastfeeding.
It was toxic as fuck.
I didn't realise just how toxic at the time.
3 children later, all born vaginally (eldest via ventouse and epidural, which she was very vocal against) I realise that as long as they're delivered safely, nothing else is relevant.

I think it’s the current expectations of birth being this magical thing, where you have to feel special etc. We’ve all got to be natural and embrace it. It’s still a major medical risky life event. Take all the drugs and interventions you want and need. You’re not a failure for not wanting to suffer when you don’t have to!

People are also so obsessed with how people feed their babies. It’s baffling! Formula or breast, you do you. Don’t feel any guilt for your choices!

I had a c-section because I had to. It wasn’t personal choice but I still received “taking the easy way out” comments. Even if I had elected to have one because I wanted one, it still wouldn’t have made me a failure. I breastfeed because I had support to do so. I’m still judged for being selfish.

As a woman, other women in particular will always judge your choices if they’re not the same as their own.

I never went to an NCT class as I’d heard a lot of negativity about them

And FWIW I fit the typical NCT attendee, middle class, professional, university educated.

I feel sick at the memory of those sessions.

I think it must really vary.

This was a long time ago, but in my NCT class, the first baby was born by EMCS, early, due to a placenta problem. The second baby, mine, was born by induction, forceps, episiotomy, epidural. Another was CS, decided by doctors whilst in labour. All sorts of things really. Some of us breast fed, some formula fed and some mixed fed. The only thing that anyone thought after all the babies had been born was that firstly the babies were alive and secondly that the mum’s had injuries that were recoverable from.

I got Absolutely hated my NCT experience. I made one friend and that's the only thing that came out of it.

I sent a full complaint afterwards. I thought NCT meant helping parents prepare for a birth.

I wanted to know how to make a bottle, how to Bath the baby, how to change a nappy etc.

I got breast feeding 'lactate-avist' woman who make me feel sick and anxious.

I spent weeks crying after the birth because I couldn't breast feed (DD wouldn't latch despite every man and his dog having a go). On the plus side the NHS did an amazing course. NCT was a total was of £140

Totally agree, I had my first baby at 21 and was told by the local NCT I was not welcome and wrong because I had decided on an epidural so I didn't go. I had very strong feelings on how I wanted my birth to be.
I actually had a very nice relaxed birth with my epidural with no pain. But I had to fight every step of the way to get it.
Back then in the 80's you were not considered a proper woman unless you went through it naturally no matter how awful it was.
I think women should decide for themselves and not be pressured into natural births if they don't want them. Both siblings opted for C sections and were very pleased with their decisions.

Oh my god, same here and I thought I was alone. It was 26 years ago! I had pre-eclampsia and a placental abruption, and my son came 2 weeks early. I ended up having him delivered by general anaesthetic and came home traumatised by the whole experience, after being told by the consultant I was lucky to be alive! I phoned the NCT co-ordinator to say I wouldn’t be starting the course as I had had my baby already. She then told me, without any knowledge of me or my medical history that pre-eclampsia was most likely caused by my diet (!). I felt awful, even though my diet was perfectly normal. I spoke to my GP, and she was furious, told me to ignore it.

For an organisation that is set up to support women, I felt dreadfully let down when I was at my most vulnerable.

My teacher went through everything in class but it was very clear that I was a disappointment in the post-course meet up. I had all the intervention, was formula feeding and she really made me feel like a failure while absolutely gushing over the only one of us who had a water birth/no drugs. As it turns out though that lady was badly damaged internally and requested c sections for her other births….

I love my Nct friends but I do question a bit of the ideology that still runs through some of the teaching staff. I went to a refresher with a different provider with my second that was much better than the Nct content. It was really clear on all the different options with no implied judgement at all.

The NCT are in a difficult position IMO. Women are all very different so what they want and need from ante natal education will be equally different and it would be impossible to cater to all perfectly. They have to balance what they believe to be best for mothers and babies with what is realistically achievable on the NHS and maybe that’s something they struggle with. I don’t think they’d be doing a good job if they terrified all women into believing that childbirth likely to need medical intervention or if they did less to promote and support breastfeeding.

I was lucky enough to have free NHS classes but considering the wide variety of birth experiences we ended up having, I don’t think it would have been possible for them to extensively prepare us for all of them.

NCT ain't free! Was quite pricey when I went 25 years ago.

The free classes run by the local hospital were much more informative and supportive at the time.

I remember going to an NCT session late in my pregnancy just after a midwife appointment where I had been referred to the consultant to discuss possible caesarean as the baby was firmly in breech position and considered unlikely to move. The course leader was heavily pressuring me to insist on a vaginal breech delivery and even rang a private obstetrician she knew who specialised in breech deliveries to make me an appointment! I shut that nonsense down quickly but how dangerous and irresponsible of her!

Luckily DD turned around just before delivery so the caesarean wasn't necessary.

Too much pressure to breastfeed, IMHO