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

[Edenspirits73]

My experiences with the NCT were toxic - I had a forceps delivery, episiotomy and all the pain relief including an epidural with my first child. I also struggled to breast feed and had to bottle feed after 3 weeks of endless trying and feeling awful.

NCT made me feel like a failure in every sense because I couldn’t breast feed and had a medical intervention. As it happens, my second baby was the polar opposite - fast natural birth, no drugs, breast fed. But the scars of ‘failure’ and how terrible they made me feel stayed with me.

I think they are quite toxic and women should never be made to feel bad for their birth experiences.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/27/women-feel-like-failures-if-they-havent-had-a-normal-birth-how-the-nct-has-shaped-childbirth-in-the-uk

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.

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’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

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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!

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.

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 🫣

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!!!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!)

Agree.

Distinctly remember a discussion around ‘Can you call it ‘giving birth’ if you have a C-section or intervention as the woman hadn’t actually done it herself’ 😬

I hated giving birth (actually delivered without intervention but it was horrendous and complicated), and was left physically damaged and clinically traumatised. I think the NCT mindset contributed to my complete sense of failure as a woman and a mother

It is entirely based on your leader I think. I wrote to ours before, explained I suffered from tokophobia, would be having an ELCS and would not breast feed. She was lovely and welcoming, DH and I were not made to feel "weird" and we were very much included (apart from the breast feeding woman who refused to teach us about pumping or bottle feeding and was frankly did not hide her utter hatred of me, and I think started my friend on the start of her very difficult breast feeding journey. The group leader was apologetic to me.afterwards. I got a lobely group of friends out of it, tips and tricks about dealing with pregnancy, the post-partum period and even up to nurseries. Weirdly, I did remember enough from the breast feeding session to be able to successfully feed my second child, although I was entirely put off having ANY external help with that (fortunately we found it easy, but had we struggled, there is no way I would have sought help after meeting the vile woman and would have moved straight to bottles as I cannot be doing with undisguised judgment and pressure).

This is why l refused to have anything to do with them. I never joined a group or bought into their cult.

I had a medically managed birth and a C section. Was perfectly happy with both. Why would anyone want to be with someone who looked down on them?

I’d have given them a piece of my mind if they’d tried their shit with me. I’m 60 now and still think the same. It’s hard enough having babies and children without being condemned for the way you bring them onto the world.

This wasn’t my experience either. The set up of the operating room was so, so useful. I had the NCT breastfeeding support person come and it was her who suggested mixed feeding.
we had a mix of natural and c/s in our group and we were all welcomed to the meeting where you meet the next group coming through. This was 15 years ago too.
I’m sorry not everyone had this experience, sounds like it is very dependent on the group leader.

I did not attend NCT so can't comment on that course in particular. I did, however, attend a similar course that was extremely focused on natural birth and hypnobirthing and I found it bizarre. I do not get the focus on birthing without pain relief. I remember thinking if I get a migraine, I take a paracetamol. Sure, I guess I could breathe and chant through the migraine but why would I? Pain is not pleasant and I don't want to experience it. My plan was always so get as much pain relief as I felt I needed. I found pethadine in my case to be effective but I definitely would not have viewed myself as a failure if I needed an epidural.

I know this will make me extremely unpopular amongst some on mumsnet but I had no interest in breastfeeding. I did breastfeed straight after birth and continued to combi feed for the first couple of days after birth to give my baby a good dose of colostrum. But I switched to exclusive bottle feeding on day three and never regretted that decision. I found the newborn days to be enjoyable to my surprise.

There is far to much pressure on new mums to be perfect 'natural' mothers who have natural births. This is exasperated by social media and youtube.

Same here. And that was in the 90s!

My NCT experience was truly excellent and supportive. The focus was more on consent, decision making and self advocation rather than the "perfect birth".

i had a birth full of interventions, but felt in control as i had the tools to discuss different options with medical staff.