love2sleep
The standard of teaching is variable within the NHS and the private sector too.
You find this in any profession.
The additional problem we face in the NCT is that we sometimes are left to carry the can, emotionally speaking, for the hideous, disappointing birth and breastfeeding experiences some of our clients go on to have - many of which are actually the result of substandard care from the NHS.
"and in all cases it was because they fely the teacher was only giving one side of the story and pushing the NCT "party line
There are a number of accusations on this thread that the NCT is unrealistic about birth and therefore sets people up for disappointment: we tell mums that the majority of them can have normal births and the majority should be able to breastfeed, and then what do you know, most go on to have difficult births followed by difficult breastfeeding.
Sometimes I feel like saying this to my clients: "The medical literature supports the view that most of you should be able to have a normal birth and should be able to breastfeed without undue difficulty. If you were living in the Netherlands this would be the case. However, we live in the UK, and if you go and give birth in our local hospital the reality is this: you are overwhelmingly likely to have shedloads of interventions. You will probably be looked after in labour by a midwife who doesn't know you from adam; she may well be rushed and under pressure because she is looking after 3 other women at the same time as trying to care for you; we can talk about having an active birth and about upright positions for labour, but the reality is that 82% of women in the hospital you're going to give birth sitting on their bottoms, lying flat on their backs on the bed or with their legs in stirrups; most of you want to go through labour without taking drugs that will impair your mobility and your memory of the birth, however, most of you will feel so frightened and exhausted from trying to cope with the overwhelming experience of labour in an unsympathetic, unfamiliar environment and without one to one care that you'll be begging for pethidine or an epidural before long. Oh yes - and when you get up onto the postnatal ward you'll be expected to give your baby formula if he or she hasn't latched on within 2 hours. If you ask for help someone is quite likely to come and grab your breast and try to shove your baby's head onto it without so much as a by your leave. If this doesn't work they might drop some comment about the size and shape of your breasts and nipples and how these will make breastfeeding extra challenging for you. Now, I wonder how many of you have considered the option of giving birth at home!'.
Can you imagine what people would say and think? But that's the reality for many of the people I teach. My way of dealing with this is to do what your teacher did: cover all the bases, but it's done at the cost of other things which are just as important - such as repeated practice of physical skills for labour, and discussion of some of the emotional issues underpinning people's feelings about birth.
And the sad thing is that it doesn't help my clients avoid having interventions, it just makes them feel marginally better about it afterwards. I think if my aim was to help the largest number of women have the best possible births I'd concentrate most of the course on doing physical skills for labour - but as I said, this gets squeezed out in order to allow time to give information on interventions. I'm also fearful that if I concentrated on physical skills and bolstering women's confidence in their ability to give birth normally I'd then be opening myself up to criticism of being 'fluffy' and of not meeting the needs of those people who'd go on to have interventions. Really - sometimes I feel that we can't win.