for thinking NCT Classes are far too labour focused...

[AliGrylls]

During the NCT classes I attended 4 out of the 6 sessions (12 hours in total) were spent on labour. We spent 3 hours talking about post natal care and 2 hours on breast feeding.

At the time I thought it was good to be prepared for labour and I had planned to have a water birth and assumed it would all go according to my plan. The thought of it made me really excited.

However, things did not go according to plan. I needed to be induced and ended up having a general anaesthetic c-section. After the c-section his father had skin-to-skin contact immediately and when I woke up I fed my baby.

The outcome was ultimately what I wanted. A lovely healthy boy. All those hours that I spent obsessing about the labour made me forget the most important thing - the fact that method of delivery is the least important thing in the process and it is the part of childbirth most of us have the least control over.

In reality the problems and minor worries we have had have been about practical things such as putting on baby grows, nappy changes and how often, how deeply our baby should be asleep. Breast feeding is generally going very well but it is a hard slog and I have so many questions and minor problems that I feel I would have benefitted from more focus on this.

In conclusion, a short period of time spent on the basic facts concerning child birth and the decisions I may need to take during labour and a far longer time on baby care would have been much more useful.

Agree totally - and so does every other person I know who went to NCT. In fact so many people (in mine and other groups) said the same thing about this that I was going to contact my local NCT and see if this could be taken up (although I understand the 'C' in the title is for childbirth before anyone points it out) - but I think the local group has closed.

I think the NCT does such a fab job and most people involved that I met were helpful and insightful and I was very grateful for the info on birth (although like you nothing went to plan) but I really could have done with more info after. We did a couple of exercises on how our partners thought we might feel in the weeks afterwards and we put a nappy on a doll and that was it. I just felt there needed to be more emphasis on the first night at home, breastfeeding, sleep...even poo and it's changing states rather than why a water spritzer and a home made CD are hospital essentials (didn't use either of them which is a shame because my dh spent a lot of time on that CD )

Apols as i hadn't had time to read the other posts before posting. However I think the problem is the lack of help elsewhere. Where I live the post-natal care wasn't great - the MWs were coming out of retirement to help as they were understaffed and my HV is, erm, problematic. Until something fills the gap I guess people will be expecting it all from the NCT.
No wonder the post-birth books are flying off the shelves!

Hi - I'm an NCT antenatal teacher too. Research shows that many women (not all, but many) who are pregnant, find it very hard to focus on anything other than labour and birth. Partner on the other hand, can see past the birth and benefit from anticipatory guidance on postnatal stuff. Some teachers get feedback after courses like 'why didn't we cover dealing with a crying baby' - and the teacher knows full well she did, but people don't always take everything in !

There's no NCT course formula - each teacher will do things differently and the amount of time given to postnatal topics will vary from teacher to teacher, and on how long the course is.

It's good practice to find out what each group wants to cover - and looking over the agendas for my last few courses, the women were very labour focused, the men more on how to be useful before, during and after the birth. I now do a second agenda session half way to make people think about life with a new baby.

We are now offering postnatal courses in some areas, or peri-natal ones which take people from before to after !

It's also good practice to evaluate courses and there are lots of ways teachers do so, but if anyone is currently on a course and doesn't like the approach - please talk to the teacher, if there is something you think is important to cover - talk to her! And if you don't enjoy the course - talk to her or talk to head office!

OK so there has been a lot of negative about the classes - anyone got anymore positive stories?

Missimac's post some way down - if I had been taught all that by my NCT teacher I'd have been very happy

As it was, my unplanned, very frightening emergency c-section was made more traumatic by my nagging sense of failure in part fuelled by the intensely "avoid hospital and do it natrually message of the NCT. I wholly failed to do that and it has left me feeling a bit vulnerable - I never gave birth etc

I accept it is not all the NCT fault but there were no real class options near me and unlike Missimac our teacher did not give us half the information and teaching she sets out

perhaps the problem is a lack of uniformity in class structure/content across the NCT?

My NCT classes with DS didn't really push unmedicated childbirth and the course leader was very upfront about the positives of various forms of pain relief (she'd had two home births herself, but didn't even mention that until directly asked at the end of the course as we were all booked in for hospital births). In fact, having wanted to go as "natural" as possible myself, remembering the discussons we'd had at the NCT classes made me feel much better about asking for extra pain relief when I wanted it (I LOVED the pethidine; my only regret about having DD quickly on just TENS and G&A was that I didn't get to have any pethidine. The epidural was an epic fail, though). And we did cover breastfeeding, dressing the baby, umm... some general childcare stuff (it's all fading a bit now), PND, changes in your relationship once you have a baby and strategies for making sure you keep communicating with each other.

Ceilidhgirl, it's generally a lot easier to have a natural birth second time round, even without alternative classes, partly because it all tends to be quicker and partly because you have done it before, understand what it's like and are more ready to be assertive (I thought I was being assertive first time round, but really I was pussyfooting around saying "no, I'd really rather not" whereas second time I was ready to just say a flat "no").

I never saw or read much about the possible outcome of my birth (failed induction) in classes or any books I have read. It came as a total shock.

We had 6 AN sessions from the community midwife at our local Surestart. They were adequate but only covered labour and birth. I was lucky to have my baby in one of the best trusts in the country for maternity services and was given lots of help & how-to advice with bathing, dressing and yes even breastfeeding for the 3 days I was in hospital after my c-section. You used to get this when they had maternity hospitals and stayed in for a few days after natural deliveries too, I guess. My mum also showed me the ropes as she came to stay after the birth for a few days.

I live 15 miles from our nearest city where NCT classes are available and also I believe you had to pay £120 for the privilege. At the risk of a flaming and going slightly off topic, does anyone feel that NCT classes are a tad socially exclusive, therefore?

I think that a poisitive about the group (from my friends) is that they are still in touch with many of the mums they met on the class. Where as for me, with a hospital ante natal, I didn't meet anyone.

AngeChica, If you are on a low income then some or all of the fee can be waived (there should have been a note about that on the course info that you were sent).

I'm actually in touch with more people from my hospital antenatal class than from the NCT class, because our NCT area is an odd one and everyone else was from the other half of the area, so they could meet up for coffee all the time whereas it was a major undertaking for me to make it over to them with DS, especially post-section on public transport. More of the mothers at the hospital class actually lived near me.

The C of NCT does stand for Childbirth though!

My classes spent a lot of time on childbirth and labour too, but as a first time mum, that's what I wanted to know about. Having had the classes made me feel a lot more in control of my labour and a lot more informed when my water birth actually became an emergency CS. I felt that I could probably work out how to wash a baby without drowning it. Spent ages on nappies too - that was another pg obsession. Little did I know that within 3 days of DS being born, I would (and had) be able to change a nappy in my sleep.

I did NCT classes as the hospital class was 3 hours long and was mostly a tour of the ward. There wasn't really enough time to bond with anyone. On the other hand, some of my NCT friends are now friend for life.

I also did NCT "Early Days" classes - they covered some of the more practical aspects of childcare - sleeping, weaning, illness etc - and a lot of how children chage your relationships (with everyone), how you feel about yourself etc. A bti like "New Mums Anonymous"!

My HV has run classes on weaning, sleeping, sun safety, safety, first aid etc for babies, which have been great. Bizarre, since the sister MW team don;t do any antenatal education at all. (I know I went to a hospital class, but I was "out of area" at the hospital).

Actually, my NCT class had a CS "Role play" - coincidentally, I played the lady having the surgery. This prepared me very well for the em CS I ended up having. Certainly in my group, the giving birth bit was what most girls and couples were concerned about - and I think the bias on that got the balance just right.

I did the classes ages ago & agree they were focused on the birth with only bf for the afterwards. They were good but could have had one session on babycare & parenting choices.

daisy99divine your post made me feel so sad. Apologies for going off topic, but I just wanted to say that you have given birth. Your experience is just as valid as anyone else's. The main aim of labour is a well Mum and a well Baby at the end of it. Please don't feel that you failed. The truth is the opposite - you succeeded. You made the right choices and have your beautiful baby as proof. Under certain circumstances a C section is a lifesaver and it sounds as though that may have been your case. It's a bit of a crude analogy, but I always tell my Mums that there are two ways a baby can come out - and both ways are 'giving birth'. Be proud of what you've done.

Honestly, if one more person says "But the 'C' in NCT does stand for childbirth" I am going to lose it.

It really is a pedantic point. After all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, no? Whatever the name is the NCT itself claims to "support thousands of people through the incredible life changing experience of pregnancy, birth and early parenthood." In other words, they claim to cover more than just birth.

Also, their website is filled with information that is not just about birth. Not to mention all the things that they sell on their website that are about being a parent not just givin birth.

Thus, if you look at the substance of what the NCT claim to support it is way beyond simply birth whatever the "C" stands for.

As NCT teachers we're quite tightly regulated. If you're unhappy with the content of the course you had you should put it on paper and send it to the teacher herself, and/or the head office. We have a review every few years and we would be expected to have tackled any issues that were complained about by updating our practice. We are trained to give a percentage (about 25-30%) of our long courses over to postnatal issues - so if you had 8 or 9 sessions you should have had some 'early days' stuff in there. Short courses are slightly different due to the time constraints, but there should still be some post-birth stuff in there.

The NCT classes ARE focused on labour but that was what I was there to learn. There was a little on nappy changing etc and a whole session on breastfeeding which was useful but I agree with other posters that my pre-baby brain could only think about the labour. I read a little about baby care etc before the baby arrived but none of it sunk in at that time. It was only after DS was born did I think - oh that is what they mean.

I also did the NCT early days course (post natal) and found that very useful for post-baby days. Too much time spent on learning to change a nappy in the first course would have been a total waste of time.

In short (sorry for ramble!) I think the balance is right. The only thing I would probably change is to put a bit more in on breastfeeding as I felt hopelessly unprepared. But again you probably need your baby in hand before that is useful too ...

NCT was absolutely wonderful for me. Both the teachers I had were incredibly supportive and great role models and the first thing I always say to my friends who tell me they are pregnant is to get themselves on the NCT course!!

Of course the NCT declares itself to support parents through preg,birth and postnatal, chaya....and the antenatal classes are a part of that.

There are 300 breastfeeding counsellors who achieve a total of something like 60,000 calls/encounters every year, most of which are postnatal.

There are early days courses, support groups for the social side (mostly postnatal) perinatal courses which span the whole period, breastfeeding support groups...

You cannot expect an antenatal course to cover much about postnatal issues (though they should cover some of them) - the babies aren't even there yet, and it does not matter if you don't know how to do a nappy or put on a baby grow or bath the baby when you are still pregnant. These very practical skills are not best learnt when there is no baby there to do them upon!

Yes, they are a part of that but the previous posters who all say that we shouldn't be disappointed when the antenatal classes focus only on labour use the fact that the "C" in NCT stands for childBIRTH as a reason why we shouldn't be disappointed. I was pointing out that the name of the NCT shouldn't mean that the entire content of the antenatal should be about labour.

Sorry if my my post was a little confusing for you.

But hang on a second, Tiktok, we learn about labour in the abstract so why not nappy-changing, feeding etc etc. Just as the babies aren't there yet when we could learn about them, so too are we not in labour when we are learning about labour!

I really don't understand your point.

It's the National Childbirth Trust!

Lots of people are very worried about labour and what it will bring for them.

Yes, ultimately it's a tiny part of being a parent but for some people, their labour experience stays with them for the rest of their lives.

I know many for whom it has been a really wonderful event but I also know many for whom it has been terrible, unforgettable and full of trauma. For those women in particular, the lack of control and understanding they felt in their labour has stayed with them and affected them deeply.

It's significant for many and many would like to have information in order that they can make decisions that are right for them and their baby.

OP, please feedback directly to your NCT teacher -she'll really appreciate it and will consider your thoughts for her next class.

I take Tiktok's point totally. I'm doing NCT at the moment - and have had my breastfeeding class... the handout with the Monday-Friday drop-in centres and the helplines for breastfeeding were immensely reassuring - and worth the membership fee alone. And she's right - ante-natal classes are just that, they are bound to concentrate on the labour. Mostly because it's such a big, enormous thing in the minds of first time mums-to-be like me that it's what we want to talk about.

chaya, here's the explanation.

Labour and birth are not 'practical skills' like bathing and nappy changing.

They are processes. They are experiences.

They involve cultural, emotional and psychological issues; they need an exploration of confidence, attitude, outlook, support from a partner, and the time to learn or practice these aspects is not when you are actually in labour - you can prepare for them, and discuss with others, inc your partner. They may involve quite difficult choices and making choices needs information and understanding.

None of this compares remotely with how to change a nappy...surely.

NCT BF helpline numbers?

Spam:

NCT Preg and Birth line: 0300 330 0772
NCT bf line: 0300 330 0771

As in, no-one mentioned them at our classes.

I obviously had a really bad teacher. Everything was just bizarre!