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!!

whats right for one mother is not right for another. we need ALL of the information on pregnancy, birth and beyond and should not be judged for OUR choices.

Whilst I thought our teacher was a little lacklustre (she was a trainer and I think still finding her feet) I was impressed on how much the she/NCT tried to cover in what was actually a fairly small amount of time (6 evenings of 2 hours) and non of it biased one way or the other. It seems like it really does come down to the teacher that you have (also our b/f classes taken by the NCT breastfeeding counsellor for the area were brilliant).

this is why i wouldn't go to NCT classes, morningpaper. they have a set criteria it seems, you either fit into it or you don't. sadly childbirth doesn't go the way we envisage it (unless your are v lucky) and we don't get the birth we 'imagined'.

Ah, but morningpaper, when you say Breastfeeding Mafia, it is synonymous with Breastfeeding Nazi - the two are interchangeable, non? Hence my invocation of Godwin's Law!

Who cares? Irrelevant.

disagree totally.

We did non-NCT independent classes and they were great. Yes we met friends through it too, but there was lots of information - and discussion too.

I think even if I had done NCT ones I'm strong minded enough to realise what is best for me. think the formula feeding is bit of red herring - you could cover everything in 2 mins flat. breastfeeding totally different - so much to say in terms of supply, troubleshooting etc.

when we did the lesson on pain relief and she asked u all what the options were, when i said 'drugs' i got a very long hard stare in return. she then started talking about massage and tens machines....

only thing she said about cs in the whole course was 'accept all pain relief you are offered'..... in the end a consultant anaesthetist came down to see me as they weer concerned about the amount of morphine i was still needing. v embarrassing.....

think we changed a single nappy as our preparation for the baby.

but made 6 v nice friends!

Oh Gateau, you need to chill!!

Listen to the lulu one - she speaks much sense (as always!!)

What about information about when bf is not working and when it is time to stop for the mother or baby's sake. Is that not just as relevant?

And it's not irrelevant, acksherly - because of my invocation of Godwin's Law you automatically lose the argument!

I'm a local NCT branch committee member and, tbh, I'm glad I didn't ever do the classes..!!

I;ve recently returned from the national conference and was left furious that the attitude was "everything medical staff say is wrong, negative and needs to be constantly challenged by everyone" and "if only more people challenged everyone we'd have 100% natural births, babies breastfed until school and world peace"....

I think it does depend very much on which ante natal teacher you get and what their own agendas and experiences are.

I've had 2 emergancy c sections, formula fed 1 baby exclusively, and then breast, mixed and formula fed the 2nd one....I'm tempted to do the Ante natal training just so someone out there doesn't constanly do the "your vagina is opening like a flower" thing

I went to a private course as NCT was full, and didn't think I learned much from it. I also think they're all very similar, although lots of people would disagree of course, so not sure whether you could dismiss NCT specifically.
More than anything, I thought it was a nice way to meet new people in similar circumstances.

I'm just bored by your tangent, suburban.

we had no "vaginas opening like flowers" we had "hurts lke fuck"

teacher had had every kind of birth, from totally natural to c/s

Gateau.

I'm really sorry to read these posts. I am also an antenatal teacher and I've just qualified having taught only a few courses. I've spent the best part of 5 years studying with the NCT for my diploma and it's been a hard slog. When I decided to do this, I had been to an NCT antenatal class and really been inspired by the teacher. I hope to inspire other women in the same way and I definitely DO NOT have an attitude which is anti- breastfeeding nor do I feel that the only way to give birth is under a tree whilst simultaneously hugging it. I do, however, realise that some people come to NCT classes with the feeling that this is how it's going to be- my classes are absolutely different to that and the feedback I have had supports this. I am very much involved in giving as true a picture as possible - it's about giving information and therefore, hopefully, empowering women to make the choices that are right for them. I have never been told "how" to teach by the NCT - each teacher is allowed to write their own course and deliver it how they like - so it is VERY MUCH down to the individual teacher. I would just say that each teacher is different and the style of teaching that the OP disliked so much may well suit others. I do feel that it is completely unreasonable to label all NCT classes as rubbish on the basis of that. I think that many many women have found them invaluable so please, do not make the assumption that everyone teachees the same things in the same way - there is no prescribed format.

Also I would say that we do make every effort to cover postnatal issues in the (otherwise) antenatal classes. However, there is limited time and it's very hard to cover everything that everyone wants. If we did do more on postnatal and had to drop something as crucial as casaerean or pain relief instead, you can imagine that this would definitely NOT be acceptable to the majority and we would not be doing our job as "antenatal" teachers.

I would also say that as a charity, the NCT does an ENORMOUS amount of voluntary work throughout the country - running mother and baby groups and running free drop-in centres and doing outreach work for underprivileged mothers/babies etc etc. It should not be forgotten that the NCT is not all about making money via these courses and could not run but for its fantastic volunteers.

Alderney, I'm with you. If I had challenged medical staff during my labour who knows what could have happened to me or dd. Sometimes its appropriate if you do not feel comfortable but should we not be enlisting a little bit of support in the people who have trained hard to save lives.

where i lived there was a one hour session offered by hospital (NHS) nothing else

OR NCT class which i paid for (though could barely afford it) as I felt i needed some help.

i knew that nct was pro BF and mothers' choice for labour

but nothing else was on offer so it was that or nothing

it is a bit like saying that if you go to tesco's to buy a newspaper you are taking on board all of their policies regarding everything.

i bought one thing from them i didnt join them that would imply something different entirely (this to moveitmoveit btw) like being a shareholder in tesco's

As far as I understand it, the tone of NCT courses is set as much by the other parents as the teacher. The other parents on my course were obsessed with the birth + so we spent less time discussing what happens afterwards. This was not the fault of the teacher but simply a byproduct of the fact that the birth is uppermost in lots of peoples minds

I didn't get to do antenatal classes last time but I did a postnatal course which I was impressed by and we continued meeting up for a while after the course, though once people started returning to work, most well before me (ds was 2nd youngest baby on course), it fell off a bit.

I am going to go to an antenatal class this time, I hope to meet others and while I have a good idea how things can go wrong, I can maybe get ideas on how to be ready in advance.

Our classes were good and covered all of the stuff that seems to be being complained about here as 'missing'. Yes, an emphasis on bf, but I went to the NHS free session as well, and that only discussed bf. I knw all my options, and the potential side effects of various choices; didn't have the birth I hoped for....but I understood the reasons why and was happy with that.

Sounds like there may be an issue with the training that NCT teachers get and ensuring they are up-to-date?

Well I'm an NCT teacher and my classes cover the following:

Half the course is labour and birth - we cover self help techniques as well as pharmacological pain relief. I direct parents to mumsnet to find out about other people's experiences of epidurals/pethidine and encourage them to be flexible as to what they think they might want/need in labour. We cover c-section and c-section recovery. I talk to people about the protocols at our local hospital and birth centre and how to get the best out of the system. If they have problems with their care I put them in touch with the supervisor of midwives for support - I know quite a few staff within local maternity services and my contacts have been a big help to the parents who attend my courses. If things crop up in the pregnancy that they are worried about I sit down with them and help them come up with a list of questions for their consultant. I put them in touch with support organisations and other local mums who've gone through the same problems as them.

The other half is postnatal. We do postnatal recovery - including what help is available for women who've had difficult/traumatic births, practical stuff on perineal care and wound care. We cover everything that parents want to know about - including bottlefeeding and using dummies. If they ask me, I give them information or factor in time for discussion. The only thing I don't cover is how to make up a bottle because they need to be shown this by a midwife or hp after their baby is born. We talk about issues surrounding formula use - where to trackdown useful information about formula/bottles/bottlefeeding.

We also cover: recognising when your baby is ill, safe sleeping, routines, coping with crying, and the emotional transition to parenting.

I try really hard to make all parents feel that their views and needs are represented.

The feedback I get from my classes is very, very positive. Mostly I get comments about how balanced the course was, and how empowered people felt by it. I'm sorry you didn't like your course. Did you feed this back to your teacher?

I do feel the courses are quite expensive and wish they were less. I don't make a lot of money out of it myself. I understand the NCT is using the money from classes to subsidise some of the work it's doing with Surestart and in children's centres. It also uses the cash to run the breastfeeding and pregnancy and birth lines, which help a lot of people.

Anyway - I'll put a link to this thread on the antenatal teachers board, so that the CEO of the NCT can see what you're all saying!

I agree with you Gateau. But I do wonder if it's down to the individual teacher and the slant they take on their teaching.

I think it's good at times to question your medical care and the choices they make, but as you rightly say - after hours of labour who is in a fit state to do so!

My teacher was incredibly anti-section, anti-drugs, anti-formula.

I came away in tears one session after her covering of c-sections had been her simply holding up a massive list of all the risks involved -no positives at all given, like the fact it might save the mother's and baby's life! This was perhaps a bit of a militant approach, exactly 25 minutes after I'd informed her at the start of the session that the hospital had booked my elective section date due to my twins being breech!

Her figures for the number of episitomies and interventions done were also wildly exaggerated. I checked them with my midwife who checked them with the hospital, gave me the correct figures and said she'd be approaching the NCT about this misinformation.

I think my class partly failed to bond because only two of us out of six breastfed and the ones that didn't breastfeed said they felt they weren't welcome at the post-natal meet ups at the teachers house - due to her strength of feeling on breastfeeding.

Other people do seem to have had positive experiences though. I think it very much depends on your birth experience and the luck of the draw of the teacher you get.

Alderney - there is a lot of unnecessary intervention going on in maternity care.

It's not just antenatal teachers saying this.

It's the top issue on the RCM's agenda as well.

They've actually got a whole website on the importance of empowering midwives to support women to have normal births.

"everything medical staff say is wrong, negative and needs to be constantly challenged by everyone" and "if only more people challenged everyone we'd have 100% natural births, babies breastfed until school and world peace"....

What came across to me was that interventions are at an all time high in UK hospitals and that this trend needs to be challenged, and that if more women were helped to have normal births and good experiences of breastfeeding then this would be categorically A GOOD THING.

You obviously heard something different, which might have something to do with YOUR personal agendas as much as anything else.

fabsmum sounds like your a good teacher with a balanced course. Unfortunately not all teachers are like you and many inflict their views upon the group, not necessarily on purpose. However, this is not the best approach when you have a group of vulnerable people who want to do the best by their baby and feel compelled to follow their teachers advice even if its not the right choice for them.