Kirstie Allsopp and the NCT - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Last week, journalist and MN blogger Linda Geddes accidentally ignited a heated debate when she appeared on the Today programme discussing NCT classes with a representative from the organisation. Fellow MN blogger Kirstie Allsopp - who's been critical of the NCT before - was listening in, and fired off this tweet:

"Turn to BBC Radio 4 for talk of a book about all the absurd myths surrounding pregnancy & birth. More NCT b** as usual though. Lots of people have good NCT experiences, but many don't. This is a very politicised, dogmatic and in my experience, scary organisation."

As she's done previously, Kirstie argues that the NCT is so focused on natural birth that they are letting down women who don't want, or aren't able, to have one by failing to prepare them - with the result that mothers who have Caesareans (for e.g) can feel stigmatized. Here's her blog post - fellow MN bloggers In a Different Voice and When The Baby Sleeps have also posted on the subject.

What do you think - do you agree with Kirstie, and if not, why? Tell us if you blog about this - and if you don't have a blog (why not? ) let us know what you think here on the thread.

Sorry, I've only read the first page so far but wanted to add my story - I live in a very "NCT" area (!) and when pregnant with Dc1, 9 years ago, I rang to enquirer about courses. The bloke I spoke to told me that he ran the courses and his wife assisted him, which I must say I found a little strange since he didn't possess a uterus but hey ho. He asked me about my pregnancy and I told him that at that point (can't remember exactly but well over 30weeks) the baby was transverse and that my midwife was keeping an eye on me in case I needed a planned c-section. This NCT bloke said, "oh we don't encourage c-sections" in a snooty voice, to which I replied, "well, a transverse baby won't come out without one, will it?" He didn't answer that but asked me how I planned to feed my baby, apparently my response "with milk" wasn't adequate so he asked my if I was going to breastfed.... I said no, I was planning to bottle feed, to which he said we don't agree with bottle feeding or caesareans so I'm afraid you won't be able to come to our classes

No agenda? Ha!!

Nct began as natural childbirth trust and it continues to focus on what is "natural" so it isn't surprising some many of nct classes have that focus.
www.nct.org.uk/about-nct/our-history
For me was
Long while ago now but it doesn't sound like it has changed I found all classes focused too much on the birth event. As the be all and end all. There is too little focus on the next eighteen years...,

Also as someone who had had extreme period pain In Teenage years enough to knock me out for a day I was told that labour pains would be even more worse than that... That wasn't true. They were the same kind of severe pain as the v severe period pains in my teens. Which makes sense really.

Agree cestlavielife. Not about the intensity of labour and period pains but as mother to an 18 year old, childbirth and breast feeding is a very small if not miniscule part of being a mummy.

I'm glad someone is finally standing up for other women against the Smuggy McSmuggersons who think parenthood is some kind of competition. I love Kirstie even more for it.

I havent read all the thread, but I get sick of all the knocking that goes on. The NCT course I did 8 years ago was useful to me as it gave useful information about what to expect from birth and shortly thereafter. We are from very small families with no other young children so had no support available to us. We met some lovely families - havent made friends for life but it was great at the time. It was the NCT Breastfeeding councillor who spotted my DS's tongue tie very early on, when the local NHS health visitors were just stressing me out and being utterly useless.

I have started volunteering recently with my local branch and feel that many of the services they provide help new parents to get settled with little ones.

what everyone else is thinking; property, craft, motherhood is there anything this polymath isn't an expert on?

I have always avoided them like the plague. The reason being that the NCT seem to attract a certain personality type. They tend to meet up in the school playground and try to impart their knowledge upon anyone in earshot.

An nct course is as good or bad as the person running it. I joined to meet people but learned a lot. We had a very open, informative, non judgemental leader who outlined pros of natural birth. Like it or not it does have benefits for mother and baby (as do other methods). I had elective c and felt brilliant about it.
Advice from health carers varied hugely when DC was tiny - hospital nurses on to swaddle or not being earliest example and drs being fairly clueless about ailments. When in london my midwife appts were short and impersonal whereas nct time valued the whole experience far more without being prescriptive about natural birth.
Kirsty is doing women a disservice by pointing them away from a source of information, support and friendship,

Superkat LOL at vag-of-honour

Not my experience at all and nor that of my sisters', sister-in-laws, friends, wives of colleagues or in fact anyone else I'v ever spoken to about the NCT! I had a great NCT teacher who tailored the course for what we all wanted to know and so covered c-sections in detail and bottle feeding. She did spend a good amount of time on breast feeding and explained that it isn't easy.

What I really hate is the blame culture. Why do people try and blame someone else for things that they had nothing to do with? One of my NCT group ended up having a c-section because her baby was breach. She was upset as she hadn't wanted one, but she was fine, her baby was fine and ultimately it was the right thing to do. Did she try and blame the NCT for not preparing her? No!

I had a third degree tear, was whisked off to theatre for stitches and took a long time to recover form my birth. Do I blame anyone for this? No! It was just what happened.

I think that people should stop trying to blame people for their own choices and just get on with it.

Oh and 'scary'? Really?! Well when I rang their breast feeding helpline in tears a few days after my baby was born after pretty much no sleep for four days, because she couldn't latch on and was losing weight and everyone was telling me to bottle feed because I was obviously useless at breastfeeding, I didn't find the lady on the other end of the phone who reassured me, talked me through everything and was the first person who told me I was doing a great job very scary - she saved my sanity, gave me confidence and made me feel for the first time that it was going to be ok. I went on to breastfeed my DD for two years thanks to her.

My course was mixed in terms of the biases Kirsty has raised. We did the Caesarian role play thing, but our discussion of pain relief was in the context of 'cascade of intervention'. My thoughts are that it attracts a certain type of parent because a lot of the negativity towards any medical help came from the parents themselves not the tutor. I attended at the time of the swine flu outbreak. Only 2 of the 8 of us had the vaccine because, ' quote ' it might be like thalidomide again'. When pain relief and interventions were discussed, there was so much handwringing and talk of feeling like a failure that I got a bit annoyed and said that these things weren't invented as a punishment but to save lives. The response was , 'are you going have an elective Caesarian then?' This was the
parents, not the tutor. The reality for me was that I went on to have a text book 'vag of honour' (love that phrase) birth in the hospital with no pain relief etc, but I gained huge confidence that those things were there to be used if I needed them.
Second time round I did need all the interventions because my baby was breech. I was mentally and emotionally prepared for a different experience. But I went into labour before my elective date and had an emergency c-sec. It was a bad experience because the hospital was rammed, theatres were full, I got to 10cm with no pain relief offered trying not to labour. Horrible thing to go through. My wish is that the NCT would throw its weight into campaigning more pragmatically to make medicalised births better, not fewer. From my limited experience, and limited knowledge, more midwives would be a good place to start.

I've had, and have friends who have had, quite mixed experiences with NCT over the last year or so. I didn't do their antenatal classes - I knew pretty much from the outset (and perhaps a little more open eyed to childbirth having been my sister's birth partner) that the natural path was going to be a pipe dream from me - I would happily have wrestled the drugs trolley off the midwife upon admission! As it was, i had a prolonged labour (60 hours) resulting in emcs and then various horrendous complication postnatally. That wasn't anything to do with having a medicalised birth; my DD's neck was deflexed and nothing would have got her out - not even 'trying harder'. HA.

However, i did do their postnatal course and found that fantastic. To be honest on the face of it, it is pretty much daylight roberry - 80 and you are lucky to have a cup of tea and a couple of print outs over the duration of the course but it really gave me an organised (ie, i didn't have to go and seek it out whilst in a postnatal fog) outlet to discuss how i was feeling in those early weeks and really try to get to grips with this new role and the changes that came with it. That alone was worth the 80 quid - not to mention the amazing women that i met through it who are now great friends.

The expense of the classes wasn't the main reason for me not engaging with the antenatal classes, it was more because i researched their philosophies and knew that i would be doing myself a disservice to only persue a method which in the main wasn't going to give me the information that i may really have needed - and did need, in the end. I'm a little bit staggered when people say that they didn't get enough info about medicalised births and interventions - what did they expect when they did NCT? Surely every woman should ensure that she has all the information regarding childbirth that she needs. I don't believe that it's up to one organisation to provide everything; it is up to YOU, as a woman, about to make sure that you have all the information that you may need and know where to get that from.

I fear that there is a lovely middle class glow and smugness about attending NCT antenatal classes and it is just the 'done' thing for some new mothers to be - rather than absolutely what that mother REALLY needs.

I must also say that i bloody really hate this culture that you are in someway a better woman, or mother, if you have a birth with no drugs or intervention. Fucking hell, it HURTS. It really fucking HURTS! WHY would women NOT access EVERYTHING that she might need in order to have the most pain free (and safe for her child) labour possible?

I understand the points made, and agree that an NCT course is only as good as the individual running it. However, Kirstie seems to think she is expert in all areas: home buying (she is pretty good at that); craft work and now childbirth. I personally find her patronising and smug, a bit like the NCT, in fact.

It really pisses me off that Kirstie Allknowing slags off the NCT without ever having experienced classes or the support it offers.

A lot of responses on here have been along the lines of 'well I know what the NCT's philosophy is - they're anti pain relief, bottle-feeding, caesareans etc'

Really?? show me the bit on the NCT's website where they say pain relief etc is wrong and that the only way to give birth is in an orgasmic trance while listening to whale song ...

I could however show you the pages where the NCT looks at reasons why CS might be necessary, what happens during a CS, tips on recovery afterwards etc - no value judgements, just information

www.nct.org.uk/birth-topics/birth-your-baby

I was an NCT teacher for a while - I always covered caeseareans, induction, pain relief, assisted birth ... I always told the couples coming to my classes that there was no 'right' way to give birth, that nobody was awarding medals for drug-free birth and that I and the NCT weren't going to be judging them. My job was to give them the information - and that included ways of avoiding interventions if that's what they wanted - and it was up to them to use it, or not.

By the way, whoever it was who said they had a male NCT teacher 9 years ago - that's impossible - when I was training you could only start the course if you had given birth (which obviously excludes men ...)

My NCT teacher was definitely anti-bottle feeding and definitely left the impression that you had failed if you didn't give birth naturally. She upset a couple of my friends at a post natal group she ran, one of whom had given up breastfeeding and the other was returning to full-time work and putting her son in full-time day care. She (nct teacher) did not hold back with her views on bottle and nursery.

I have a mixed feeling about my NCT course. From one hand it was clear that only drug free naturally started labour with breastfeeding would do. We were banned from talking about pain during labour - "uncomfortable" was considered the only appropriate word. From another hand we had a brief "role play" when our teacher was a woman about to have a Cesarean and we were supposed to say who would be normally present and arrange ourselves in those various roles around her. This mental picture really helped me during my EmC. I had huge problems with breastfeeding afterwards and when I practically begged for help there was no help forthcoming. To be fair there were no LL consultants and nothing at the hospital.

Forgot to mention that free antenatal classes at Guy's hospital that I managed to attend before we moved out of London were fantastic. Also a midwife told me that this "labour is not painful" attitude doesn't help. Because they receive petrified women in early stages of labour that think that something is horribly wrong if it's more than uncomfortable. In some cases it just stalls their labour. She didn't realise that this source of information is NCT.

We weren't told labour wasn't painful by our NCT teacher, but she was a midwife at a local NHS hospital so was very good.

Pleased that Guy's was fantastic because I trained there but Poole was poor IMO.

basildonbond it was me who mentioned the male NCT teacher and I can assure you that I am not lying, thank you very much. If you had bothered to read my story you would have seen that he told me that I would not be able to attend the classes that he ran with his wife's assistance as I planned to bottle feed. I complained about this to the Chief Exec of the NCT. Presumably his wife was the designated teacher but that's not what he told me on the phone, I'm sorry if this pisses you off but it is the truth. Some people have their own agenda and will push it at all costs - this is the same in the NCT as anywhere else.

My NCT teacher 9y ago told me not to worry if my milk didn't come in day 1 because babies are born with a full stomach and won't get hungry for a few days. This advice did not help me personally.

Another gripe about the "couples" nature of the "course" - most blokes if they are honest find it completely boring (and some women too!) I just don't think anything can really prepare you for the shock of giving birth and having a newborn, expectations are perhaps too high of what you are meant to gain. With hindsight it was a waste of money and time!

I looked at going to NCT classes, but they only ran classes in more affluent areas than ours. Which, tbh, pissed me off - they're more like the "Middle Class Areas Childbirth Trust" than the "National Childbirth Trust". If they're a charity they should do more outreach than they do at the moment, which only seems to consist of one project in Leeds. Presumably a middle class couple who are articulate and knowledgeable already will be less likely to be railroaded into interventions than a single mum from a deprived area.

I also had had loads of fertility problems and IVF to get pg. I felt that I was already going to fall foul of their "natural is best" ideology, and to be honest by this point wasn't really that fussed about how the baby came out as long as we were both ok at the end of it.

Maybe it's unfair to slate them without actually having gone. But I do think that their image and dogma alienates a lot of women from the outset, and there are probably lots of women out there who don't know anything about them.

basildon you seem unable to tolerate,or accept others experience of nct
so because you'd ok time,ergo all nct is good?these are others real life accounts
Kirstie has raised a valid topic and the next biggie is how doe snct sort it's damaged brand and reputation

I've just got back from my first NCT class. I was concerned that I'd find it annoying and too focused on natural birth etc but in actual fact I found it excellent.

I have a biology degree and have read a lot of information about labour and birth and everything the course tutor said coincided with my own scientific knowledge and understanding.

I felt she gave a very balanced overall view. In the class we looked at what happens in a textbook labour, relaxation techniques and then spent around an hour looking at the pros and cons of the different pain relief options.

At no point did I feel that the 'natural is best' philosophy was pushed. The other people on the course seemed very nice and a good cross section of our town, but obviously as others have said the course costs will put off people on low incomes (although I believe discounts are available if you are on benefits).

I think like with a lot of things, it's all down to the course tutor and the sort of people who run the local NCT. If they're sensible, then that's great. If they are cliquey and judgemental then I can understand it putting people off massively.

I think people need to separate the classes from the whole organisation.