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!!

why? why wouldn't increasing the numbers of converted able to bf be better? why make life hard? revolutions always start with the middle class.

It would, but theres more help already available to them I would prefer to help those who cannot afford the NCT services. And we all know the NHS services are stretched. More voluteer help is needed for the underprivilaged, theres a huge inequality health care, would just prefer to help bridge that gap.

you know that it's only the NCT ante-natal classes that are charged for? bfcs are free to all.

That's the 64 million dollar question Aitch

I think I'd like to write something about my experiences with dd, both positive and negative, and give examples where people did really help me. At the end of the day, I just wanted to feel included, rather than someone on the periphery. It is hard for other new mums to help, as I suspect I was pretty depressed (not PND, just incredibly sad), and therefore would have benefitted probably from being befriended by a mum with slightly older kids who wasn't having to draw down on her own resources through those first few months. I think that it would also be important to point out things like not needing sympathy, as the birth of my dd is not a disaster!

Sorry, I'm probably rambling now - I will go and have a think on it.

but middle class women have problems breast-feeding too!

In our area, SureStart provides tons of breastfeeding support, deliberately aimed at women who are not affluent/middle class etc, htough I've no idea what their success rate is.

I don't think that the NCT deliberately aims itself anywhere but the truth is that it is the more middle class, well-educated women who want to know more about pg, childbirth, bfing etc etc and have the resources to pay for the private classes. It is also true that these same women are way more likely to be the volunteers at branch level. If you can think of any way to change this, I'm sure the NCT would love to hear them!

But they are aimed at certain types,(being careful not to elaborate on this as trying to avoid a class war) and many wouldnt feel comfortable going to them. You have to reach people in their own comfort zone.

It is difficult to make the NCT more diverse. Our NCT does try to keep things cheap/low-key so as to be more inclusive eg, fund-raisers are along the lines of nearly new sales, picnics, coffee mornings etc where donations are minimal, if at all, rather than say, eg, balls (these are often suggested!). We don't really have a budget to advertise widely however, or enough volunteers to help out.

Classes are a different matter as the price alone is prohibitive for many and yet the the teachers make very little from them.

they are not aimed at certain types. they are often conducted by certain types, however, because of the membership. so, start a branch in one of the areas you are working in, let them take advantage of all that expertise. let's say you're talking about a disadvantaged area, many won't be earning enough to have to pay the full amount for courses in any case.

EXACTLY, so you get the point!

so is that what you're doing? i thought you weren't doing anything through the NCT? didn't you say that?

My NCT teacher was a flake but she lived in a council house on a fairly grisly estate and we had to go there for a couple of the sessions ... so not all ubermiddle class by any means ...

LOL at Ubermiddleclass!

Quattro - what do you mean by flake?

parhaps she tasted like never tasted before!!!!

"but this teacher made out that anyone who ended up with instruments or a section did something wrong"

With respect Riven - did she actually imply or state outright that anyone who ended up with instruments or a section 'did something wrong', or did she say that there were things you could do that could reduce your chance of needing an operative birth?

On the issue of the 'NCT is too middle-class' thing that people go on and on about... this drives me mad. The mums who run the branches mostly tend to be middle-class because most volunteers in ANY organisation tend to be middle-class. These women have partners so have some unpaid childcare, are working part time or not at all, and they have the confidence and the professional skills to take on the roles in the branch. In other words they are able and willing to take on this work. F*ck it - why aren't we celebrating the generosity and professionalism of so many of these women instead of whining about how it's all 'too middle class'. It makes me

Honestly some of the comments on this thread just make me feel sad and so frustrated. People have a right to comment on the quality (or otherwise) of their NCT courses, but the constant, constant attacks on the NCT itself for promoting normal birth and for being 'too middle class'... it's so wearysome that we should have to be constantly defending ourselves against this sort of mean spirited, wrongheaded, politically correct criticism.

Midwives everywhere are really, really concerned about the currently very low levels of normal birth in UK hospitals, and the NCT is one of the few organisations that's lobbying at a very high level to make major changes to maternity services - like improving birth environments, giving women the option of one to one care in labour, and continuous care in pregnancy and during and after labour - all things that will make a huge difference to all women BUT ESPECIALLY DISADVANTAGED WOMEN. And yet the moaning about the NCT seems to focus on the mums at NCT coffee mornings being a bunch of posh cows, or the NCT being too 'pro natural birth' or 'fluffy'. I mean - I don't have anything in common with half the women I teach or the women who volunteer for the branch, other than the fact that we're all in love with our children - but that's enough for me. I live in a sh*t-heap and I've never hosted an NCT meeting because I'm too embarrassed about how grim my house is compared to the homes of other people on the committee where I live - but it doesn't stop me from appreciating the work that the other people do, or make me bitter or resentful.

Where I live there is plenty on for w/c mums - we're bristling with Sure Start and Children's centres. They wouldn't want to come to NCT coffee mornings even if they knew they existed, but they DO benefit from our bf counsellors (we have 5 and run clinics around the borough) and they DO benefit from the lobbying and research that the NCT does, and they DO benefit from people like me sitting on the MSLC and feeding back their views to senior midwives about the crap things that are happening to them on the wards and in the community.

Well said fabsmum.

fabsmum, generally I agree with a lot of what you've said, but there have been a number of posts on the use of the phrase "normal birth" and the problems with it.

I'm an NCT member and would like to get more involved but have never heard back from my phone call atttempting to volunteer to do something that my local NCT say they really want someone to do - set up local yahoogroups.

But anyway - I would prefer that the NCT looks to promote a better birth experience for everyone. That might well mean including improving experiences for women who need to have caesarians, and not assuming that every birth with any kind of intervention is some sort of failure, and therefore making women who have had or will have such interventions feel like they've somehow failed.

I would love to have had advice first time round on how to resist induction simply because I was overdue and 37 - apart from anything else I don't believe the due date was right. This time my first scan changed my edd by nearly two weeks and I'm hoping that although I'm even more ancient than I was last year it will help me avoid induction and being strapped to a monitor for most of my rather long labour.

However, I don't believe that my eventual need for ventouse help after a long labour (over 24 hours), several nights with no sleep etc made the experience a failure or abnormal. And it really makes me quite cross. I'd love a birth with less interventions, but compared to some of what I most feared it was ok, and on my terms I succeeded at that stage.

"But anyway - I would prefer that the NCT looks to promote a better birth experience for everyone".

They do. They lobby for more one to one care for all women, better postnatal care, and continuity of care.

"That might well mean including improving experiences for women who need to have caesarians"

Lobbying for better postnatal care directly benefits women who have had c-sections. This is something the NCT has a lot to say about.

"not assuming that every birth with any kind of intervention is some sort of failure"

Sigh. The NCT DON'T ASSUME THAT EVERY BIRTH WITH ANY KIND OF INTERVENTION IS SOME SORT OF FAILURE! This is just an unfair assumption you've jumped to and is in no way an accurate or fair comment on the NCT's stance on increasing rates of normal birth.

"and therefore making women who have had or will have such interventions feel like they've somehow failed"

Drawing attention to worrying high rates of interventions among low risk mothers has got nothing to do with treating birth as a competitive 'sport', and everything to do with wanting to protect the health of women and babies who are damaged by unnecessary medical interference in birth.

"However, I don't believe that my eventual need for ventouse help after a long labour (over 24 hours), several nights with no sleep etc made the experience a failure or abnormal"

If you ended up with an instrumental birth that might have been avoided with better and more appropriate and individualised care, then that is a failure on the part of the people who were supposed to be looking after you and your baby and helping you to have the safest and best birth possible. It's got nothing to do with personal 'failure' or anything you did or didn't do. Mothers always do the very best they can for themselves and their babies to try and make the safest choices, sometimes in very difficult circumstances.

Interesting discussion. I must admit though that my feelings remain the same as OP based on my own experience. I do think the NCT do good things in general but over emphasise the 'natural' birth/breastfeeding, but looking back now, I feel sad that I felt disappointed in myself at being induced and needing (sshhhhh....pethidine). I have since gone on and had 2 more kids, induced, but the third without any pain relief. And rightly feel well proud of myself. But that has taken me 3 years to get to on the first birth.

However, it is definately true, you make good friends from it, and the NCT definately supported that, as we had a volunteer who let us meet up in her house every week before and after all our births until we got extablished. So I am very grateful for that.

Honestly I think that as long as we have a birthing culture where the majority of women are having highly medicalised and (often) substandard care, and there is a really low rate of normal birth, the NCT will cop a shedload of flack for emphasising that birth doesn't have to be the way it so often is in today's NHS. We tell women that most of them CAN give birth normally (which is true), then send them into a sausage factory birthing system where the overwhelming likelyhood is that they won't because of the type of care they get.

I do think it's really telling that NCT teachers themselves often birth their own babies outside the normal system. The rate of homebirths is incredibly high among NCT teachers, as are the numbers who use independent midwives. All three teachers in our branch had an IM for most of their births. One of these teachers lives on a grim council estate, while I had to remortgage our house to pay for it - it was something that financially was a big deal for us.

Riven - so those were her actual words, that mums who have had interventions 'have done something wrong'?

Re meeting other mums -

I set up an NCT service locally for parents-to-be to meet others in a social setting - drinks, nibbles and a couple of short presentations by 2-3 local businesses e.g. baby signing, baby massage, postnatal exercise. The cost was low as businesses were charged a tenner to come along and present and this covered most of the expenses of the evening. These were really popular but I had to step down because:

• I started a new job and didn't have as much time left to give (it was something I did voluntarily)

• I had to arrange childcare (at my own cost) which became difficilt when DH had to travel for work

• a change in the way people enquire about NCT classes meant they could opt out of hearing about other NCT services and therefore I couldn't send them information about this very sociable evening

Needless to say since I did it voluntarily, the service no longer exists because no other volunteer has stepped forward.

fabsmum - I agree. The NCT gets a lot of flak quite unfairly IMO, simply because they promote the idea that it IS possible for MOST women to give birth naturally, without needing a hugely medicalised environment and tons of drugs. When I attended classes, there was NO suggestion that anyone who took the medicalised route was a 'failure' - that word was never used at all. But the different types of pain relief were discussed honestly and openly and the disadvantages/side effects weren't hidden. This allows people to make an informed choice.

Riven - being on benefits would mean the course fees would be waived, so they would be free to you. So it's more a case of whether you think the nct could give you information and help you make up your own mind about any birth choices you might have.