to think that, even considering the NCT's reputation, this breastfeeding counsellor was *shite*?

[SarahAndQuack]

I've just had the NCT session with the breastfeeding counsellor. I'm doing NCT because I'm pregnant with my first biological baby; I'm on my own and I have a 9 year old who's my ex-partner's biological daughter, and she and I did NCT then too - so obviously, I do get that some bits will be less relevant to me. But mostly it's been useful as I've never given birth before, and when we did NCT most of a decade ago I was concentrating more on the 'partner' stuff. Anyway, that's the background.

The counsellor started out by describing how, when a baby is born, it can crawl up its mother to find the breast and latch on for itself. She went on about this at some length. Someone asked if this is something likely to happen with a NHS birth and she said absolutely it was. Then she asked if anyone had questions about establishing breastfeeding, so I asked if she had tips for if you had a less-than-ideal birth and no skin-to-skin. I was expecting tips about getting a baby to latch or whatever.

She said in that case, you could feed the baby expressed milk with syringe, then 'later on' try to 'establish' breastfeeding (but no indication of how). Apparently those were the two options: either your baby crawls up your body as nature intended, or you're onto syringe feeding. I thought this was utterly bonkers so the session didn't start well for me.

After that, virtually every question someone asked about FF or feeding expressed milk, she'd look confused and reply 'well ... you could do that. It's your choice! Whatever choice you make is up to you!' Clearly people were asking for actual advice, and clearly she'd been told she wasn't allowed to insist breastfeeding was the be-all and end-all, but she also had nothing helpful to say about anything else.

At some point she split us into two groups and said she'd teach the partners how breastfeeding should work and then they would teach the mums, and she said since I was on my own she'd teach me. She talked me through it and I asked about positions after a c-section, and she replied 'I can only talk about what's straightforward' then got up and walked off, so I was sitting there on my own while everyone else carried on talking. Roughly 40% of women have sections! It's not a niche thing!

I am fully aware other people in the group found it a bit crap; there was a bit of muttering and we were all pretty obviously clockwatching.

Is it me, or is this really shit?

And according to my NCT practitioner this crawling helps safe delivery of the placenta and to avoid excess bleeding.

When I had my children (in two different areas) the local health visiting teams ran drop-in feeding support sessions, which were useful to get hands on feedback and help. One had a look in my child’s mouth, said she suspected a tongue tie and referred us to the clinic. They also did baby weighing, and help and advice with weaning.
It may be worth asking your midwife if they do this in your area.

LOL 🤣 Having given birth abroad where they insist on doing this bloody awful massage in order to help with that, a newborn baby isn't likely to make a dent. I think I growled and swore at them and I am the most mild mannered person who wouldn't say boo to a goose.

I never was involved with NCT but I gave birth at a hospital that was very pro breastfeeding. But because I had a C-section I really struggled to latch - apparently this is because they have more anaesthetic medication circulating in their system. In the hospital they kept showing me how to latch but it just wasn't working when I tried. Certainly at no point was there ever any crawling. Once I got home I persevered but it was extremely painful and my baby was still not latching properly. Even worse, I kept getting different midwives and HVs and they all had completely different (trenchant) views. One insisted it had to be exclusively breastfeeding, another said I needed to top up by using combination feeding because my baby was losing weight, another said I needed to formula feed. It was a horrible struggle for weeks and I was in tears for so much of it. Fortunately I was going to an NHS bf support group and one of the other mums told me that if I could hang on in there it would all fall into place by about the 6th week. And she turned out to be right! At week 6 we somehow got the hang of it and I ended up breastfeeding for 15 months. But I will never forget being upbraided by one expert after another, each contradicting the one before. Some of them were real bullies, and not to mention that they just wouldn't listen when I told them I had an infection down below. They only gave me a prescription when I brandished the stinky sanitary pad at them!

It's about the biology of mother/baby interaction - it's just something that was part of our evolution, it probably did happen at some point and was possibly helpful! Mother Nature has a funny way of creating these benefits!

Places that aggressively massage for the placenta to come are in most cases overreacting TBH - America by any chance? Over medicalised birth capital of the world....

No, weirdly, Germany where they are mostly excellent at birth, very hands off, all kinds of slings/wall bars/pools even in the main city hospital, an alarming amount of trust in homeopathy, although epidurals available very fast if you want one too - they are just into the massaging too. TBF I don't think they did it before the placenta had come out, they do it afterwards.