to think NCT antenatal courses are pretty much a load of crap???!

[Gateau]

What a waste of money. Yes, you meet some good friends from it, but IMO that's one of the only positives.
They draw over about six weeks what could be said in one or two classes. All the members of our course said that.
The course is almost all about the woman's 'birth experience' which I found just makes women obsess about the birth itself. So many women I knew were "disappointed" with the birth, when surely it's not all about teh birth, but more about the wonderful reward you get at the end?And they barely touch on having a C-section - which is what I had.
And there's all this rubbish about "challenging" the medical staff when they suggest you have a C-section- with what energy, after 14 hours in labour? And when they say either have a c-section or risk endangering you and the baby, what choice is there?
our NCT teacher asked me to do a talk to her new group post-baby - or rather I was the only one who said I would. She very much disliked that fact that I was telling them I bottle-fed (because we are breaking the breastfeeding law, of course)and that I DIDN'T advocate sitting around the house in pjs after the baby was born - it doesn't suit everyone's state of mind. The NCT IMO is dogmatic.
I think the NCT course would be much more productive if it focused a little more on the early parenting side of things - that's where me and most of my NCT friends could have done with the advice!!

did all those of you who didn't rate the classes get an opportunity to express your dissatisfaction? at ours, we had a questionnaire to do at the end of the ante-natal weekend and also after the bfing class. i presumed that was standard practice, is it not?

Sigh!
Feel a bit despondent and demoralised. I'm an NCT teacher and I love it. I'm passionate about my job and I get great feedback from my clients. I think whatever profession you can think of, there will be people who are good at their job and people who are not so good. This includes doctors and midwives too.
When I begin my classes, the group do set the agenda. I always ask if anyone is having a cs. If no one is I ask if it's fair to assume they'd all like to have as straightforward and quick a birth as possible. Strangely that's what they always want! I tell them I can't make any promises, but I can teach them things that can make it more likely that that will happen. It's called active birth. Everything I teach is backed up by research evidence. None of it is my own opinion. It comes from 4 years training and having taught 250 couples. My own 4 birth experiences pale into insignificance compared to this so I don't mention them. And yet every woman who gives birth thinks she knows the 'truth' about labour. The truth is that no two experiences are the same. I also say that if I were teaching marriage preparation classes, would they expect me to focus half the course on divorce, how to cope after divorce, maybe a nice divorce role play? After all, a third of marriages will end up in divorce. Or should I focus the course trying to teach them things that will make their marriage work, how to have a successful marriage?
Just to add in terms of the discussion about the middle classness of NCT, I was a teenage mum and now run classes for teenage mums. My friend teaches asylum seekers and another friend taught the first ever lesbian only antenatal course. It made the daily mail!

My NCT teacher had a section which helped I think.

She was good actually. But not remotely like the stereotype. The only thing that went wrong was the invited person to give the talk about the time post birth. The usual woman was away and the stand-in had had postnatal pueperium (psychosis) and had been sectioned. I think talking to us was quite cathartic for her, but left some people in the group gibbering wrecks.

What a lovely post, chickenlover. The only thing I'd disagree with is the simile with marriage preparation classes. If you teach them that all is rosy if you only trust each other blah, blah, blah, it may come across as a bit.. Christian (replace with any other dogma). Fine if you agree with that dogma, irritating if you don't. Also, don't forget that you may be more in control of your marriage - it DOES take two - than you are of your own birth experience. Also, a bit of a leading question: "Do you want a quick and straightforward birth?" Who's going to answer anything but yes?

"it is high time another provider seized the opportunity and ran an impartial, open course which properly monitored its tutors and the messages/information they were sharing with their classes"

There are loads of private antenatal courses out there.

Mostly run by NCT trained teachers!

NCT DOES monitor its teachers - they get observed on a regular basis and there is a channel for formal complaints. Did you use it? You could have got a refund if your complaint was upheld. The teacher might also have been referred for further training if she'd been found to be at fault - this does happen sometimes.

i think that (as i said earlier) it'd be good if there were simply more choice of state funded provision. nct is the only provision in many places.

i am sure that many nct classes are fine and the teachers lovely and not as many have stated here. trouble is more disgruntled people will complain than the satisfied many who own't say anything

don't think people here are in general knocking the nct more their personal experiences of the expensive classes they have paid for.

all i wanted was a) opportunity to meet pg people like me (as an older mum - at 40 my first (and ended up only) child) and

b) advice about how to be a parent literally as a know nothing mum - eg giving birth/looking after a baby
what i got was grief/guilt as i told her what i had been told by my consultant after having lost my first pg which was that i would need a c-section. i would have done anything to keep that pg and in fact did spend most of my pg in bed resting so as to stop 3 early onset labours. to have the AN teacher poopoo all this as she knew better was soul destroying. pg is about having a BABY not solely about the way in which you give birth

and i do think prep for hard marriages would also be a good idea!

"If you teach them that all is rosy if you only trust each other blah, blah, blah, it may come across as a bit.. Christian (replace with any other dogma)"

Women know a third of marriages end in divorce, just like they know that a quarter of pregnancies end in c-section and a good chunk of the remainder end with forceps and ventouse.

Chickenlover is right - the point of antenatal education is to equip you with skills to help you get the best birth you can - whatever form that takes, and to help you cope with the aftermath, whatever that is.

Overthemill - what did your teacher say to you that made you feel so criticised? Did she question whether you needed a c-section? Was it what she said that upset you, or the way she said it, or both?

Did you say that you did go on to have a vaginal birth?

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I don't understand your emphasis, Fabmum. I merely stated that a marriage preparation course taught from the perspective that marriages all last forever could be a tad irritating, unless that's what you wanted to hear. But then if you'd paid your £200 you'd need to believe that the course would make a difference to your future hapiness and not want to get addresses of divorce solicitors and the CAB office. I don't know. I was just making conversation, OK? taking issue with a comparison made which sounded fine on a superficial level.

Pruners - I teach an 8 week course (plus one bf evening). 4 of those sessions are for posnatal topics. Of the four remaining sessions I spend one on birth support issues (which touches on epidural, monitoring, and failure to progress, plus massage skills), one which covers agenda setting, place of birth and normal labour, one which covers breathing, positions and self help strategies, and one which covers c-section and assisted birth. What would you remove from the course to allow more time to talk about interventions? The stuff on normal labour? Self help strategies? Birth support issues?

You just can't fit it all in. What women need to know some information on why they might need interventions, what they can do to reduce their chances of needing them, (briefly) what happens during a c-section/assisted birth and recovery issues. I honestly can't see how it would help to go into a lot more detail than this or what else you could drop from the course to make room for it.

I think part of the problem is that there is only so much you can teach about a section - our class did a simulation which was great (I went on to have a vaginal birth but several of the women who did have a section said it was actually surprisingly useful preparation).

But apart from that, there's not a lot you can say except that it may be needed, and here's what happens if you have to have one.

We discussed the various scenarios (elective, emergency, crash, etc) and the different ways each would be treated and consulted about. And we also discussed forceps and ventouse, and what to expect in each scenario.

But what else can you really say? I mean in a ventouse situation (which is what I ended up with) you don't do much - you just lie back and hope it's all ok and you don't have a massive tear - there's relatively little you can do to manage the situation once it gets to that point. Whereas uncomplicated vaginal births are much more open to different approaches, different settings, just more choices generally, so therefore more to discuss.

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I made enquiries about NCT classes in my area only to be told that there weren't any, so that was that.

I went to the NHS ones with my own midwife and on the whole they were really good - four sessions - too long though, went on until 9.30pm (surely most 30 + week pregnant women are in bed at 9.30? Or was it just me?).

As a complete aside, I do wonder about whether people's perceptions that they were being judged about decisions re FF, epidurals etc were right though. There was one woman in my NHS class who kept banging on about how she wasn't going to be bullied into BFing. Fine, no one was trying to. Every week on and on she went. Then she started going on about whether she would be given formula in hospital. No, said MW, you will have to bring your own. Rant rant rant. MW pointed out that BFing mums have brought their own milk in with them.

I must have had an excellent NCT teacher. Not judgmental at all, not dogmatic but very pro - choice "if the decision is your decision it is the right one" seemed to be the overriding theme.

Whilst a lot of the content I had heard before (paranoid first timer reading every book and magazine I could lay my hands on) my dh found them really useful. We did cover cesareans and on day 5 post birth between xmas and new year when health care staff were sparse she dropped everything and came to see us after a distressed phone call from me stuck in the middle of baby blues, bereavement and a refluxing baby I think she is saint material!

We are not well off and were worried that NCT classes would be a bit posh for us but they worked for us and I still meet the girls & tots every week 18 months later.

"Though it's certainly true that people hear more of what they want to hear in classes like this and who knows what gets forgotten?)"

You've hit on something that's key for me. People have very, very selective hearing - this is something I've learned alot about since starting teaching.

I've attended reunions and had people saying things like: "I wish you'd told us about reflux - it caused us such a lot of problems" and I think 'I DID tell you. Twice. And gave you a handout. And pointed you in the direction of the BabyCentre page on the subject'. But of course it would be rude to say anything, so you just apologise, admire the baby and ask how his/her reflux is now.

I also think that people sometimes want a whipping boy and as the most vocal advocate for the promotion of normal birth the NCT is sometimes bound to get it in the neck.

Do NCT teachers visit their local NHS maternity units to see what they're like? I know of several women who have not been able to have the home births they'd wanted due to staff shortages etc, and have ended up in the local maternity unit.

When I was last there, having DS4, I saw women coming in for induction with their birthing balls, candles etc - only to be left on the ante natal ward. They'd been given Prostin, and some were obviously well dilated, but they still needed to wait in a cramped ward behind their curtains until a labour room became available.. There was no room for any of the stuff they'd bought and I don't think any of them would have been allowed to light candles or play music.

After an earlier poster said that her NCT teacher told her that she should have her DH park in an ambulance bay if necessary and ask the receptionist to get someone to move the car - I wonder how aware some teachers are of the current state of NHS maternity provision.

I was the chair at the Stratford upon Avon branch and a bigger bunch of twats you could never hope to meet.
The NCT teachers was a too posh to push type and FF they were snobby unwelcoming and rude to anybody who wasn't exactly the same as them, ex teachers mainly and my year trying to join in and be helpful was enough to put me off the entire organisation, having said all that I met some wonderful Mums who I am still in touch with 6 years later and the NCT have been major movers and shakers in the whole birth expperience, without them your husband would still be sat outside waiting whilst you gave birth so they are good eggs really.

"Do NCT teachers visit their local NHS maternity units to see what they're like?"

I don't know in general, but my NCT teacher was also a part-time midwife and delivered regularly at the local hospital - in fact when I was on the postnatal ward she happened to be passing and came in to hear my birth story in person!

See, I would find an NCT teacher who was also a practising midwife worth listening to.

I just wonder how many are aware that prospective parents' lovingly written birth plans are often useless due to the facilities/staff available.

See, I would find an NCT teacher who was also a practising midwife worth listening to.

I just wonder how many are aware that prospective parents' lovingly written birth plans are often useless due to the facilities/staff available.

Those are called NHS classes.

I felt very sorry for the couples I saw who could barely fit themselves, let alone birthing balls etc, into the cramped bedside space they got in the ante natal ward.

Do you think that NHS classes are likely to be more realistic about what can and can't be done?

I imagine that must be true, as the classes are run by people who actually work in the maternity units and would know that a woman is, for eaxample, unlikely to be moved to the labour ward until she is well dilated.

I know what you mean bubble - some of the stuff I saw people taking in when I was in hospital, I did think "are you having a baby or camping?!"

Pehaps it was because she was a MW, but our NCT teacher was quite forthright about that - she said: don't bother with candles in hospital, you won't be allowed them, or with anything that requires plugs as they are not supposed to let you plug in untested electrical devices. Get batteries for any electrical devices you want to use, and spare batteries in case it goes on longer than you think. And she also gave us advice on taking food as the vending machine stuff was so awful!

I was very shocked by what I saw last time.

When I had DS1, nearly eleven years ago, I was in a labour room with DH at 3cm dilated (me, not DH ) I had a fantastic labour and delivery with the same midwife throughout.

Fast forward ten years and, in the same hospital, women were in advanced labour behind curtains on an ante natal ward with other peoples husbands and partners 2 feet away.