to by annoyed at this NCT antenatal group

[birthstoryvisit]

Ok, I know I'm being unreasonable, that's why I've name changed, but I need to get this off my chest.

My DS is three months' old. Yesterday, I went back to my old NCT teacher's class to give my birth story (long, epidural, ventouse, lots of stiches). A friend with a wonderful birth (waterbirth, soft lights) went too.

They were horrid to me. Did not ask me one question about my labour (I thought that they'd want to know what some of the interventions were really like). Their basic attitude was "You failed to have a natural labour. I do not need to talk to you because my labour will not be like that. I am coming to classes and will have a lovely, natural birth with maybe a bit of gas and air. You are a failure." They spent their whole time asking my friend about her ante natal yoga and whether it was the raspberry leaf tea that ensured the quick labour.

This isn't just me. The first thing my friend said when we left was "goodness, they were a bit judgy weren't they?". I get it, they're first time mums and in denial, but am I being unreasonable to hope that at least one of them has a long labour and needs an epidural?(I know I am really ). I gave up part of my weekend to try and be helpful. Grrr, won't be doing that again.

Carmen - that's exactly why it's so important to have a voice which speaks up for not allowing the process of giving birth become completely medicalised. CS rates in the UK aren't as high as the US, but are still worryingly high in many areas.

As sabire said, the NCT encourage a natural, normal delivery where possible for the simple reason that it's statistically safer for baby and mother! I don't see how anyone can argue against that fact. In some pregnancies, it is safer to have medical intervention eg my DC2 who needed to be delivered by CS to save her life. And alongside that there's the balancing act of using intervention where it isn't medically necessary but desirable from the mother's point of view eg if a mother is in agony and only 2 cm dilated and feels traumatised already, then on balance, it's better to have the epidural for the mental well being of the mother.

The NCT simply tries to promote natural, normal births because potentially MOST births could be like that. Not all, but MOST. If your birth turns out to have specific complications which warrant intervention, or if you fall into the second category of wanting intervention but not needing it medically - where on earth is the evidence that the NCT will consider you a 'failure'? I have never heard any NCT teacher express that view. I still think this is about women who maybe aren't wholly happy with their birth experience transferring their feelings onto the NCT, rather than blaming the understaffed underesourced NHS, or possibly even just accepting that there was nothing wrong with opting for intervention if that was their choice

The NCT campagn to improve midwifery services so that more women are able to have a normal delivery, which is what most of them want. They also provded support for women going,about to go or who have just been through labour and birth. I think the campagin messages (and some rogue elements in the organisation) can make some people think that the NCT judges people if they have not had a normal birth, however I think that mothers, especially new ones, are often quick to assume people are judging them.
It is very difficult to seperate policy from the individual experience.
I sat next to a close friend at an NCT presentation about the need to reduce the section rate and how this might be bought about. It was talking about policy and reducing numbers in general and how this would be a good thing for the mums to be etc. My friend had both her children by C-section and struggled to seperate the campaign from the NCT judging her and her birth choices.
I think we are all quick to read judgment into a comment about anything which we are sensitive about and birth and parenting are always going to be this kind of subject.
.

"BUT let us not remember that only a few generations ago people were routinely dying in childbirth too, and having still births".

Despite all the medical interventions we have now, we still have a stillbirth rate of over 5 in a 1000 pregnancies.

And it hasn't gone down in the past two decades, despite the rise and rise of c-section and assisted birth rates.

Biggest risk of stillbirth is for mums from ethnic minorities, young mums, mums over 40 and mums from poor backgrounds. Suggests to me that some of the money that's currently being spent on medicalisation of birth would be better spent on antenatal care....

Would also like to point out that in the 1960's when I was born there was only a 5% c-section rate and a lower rate of assisted births than we have now, and we don't look back on those days as being particularly perilous for birthing mothers and babies.....

"But in the 20th century why should women (esp first time mothers) have to spend 12 hours in screaming agony if they dont have to?"

Well - they usually don't. But there are risks and benefits to epidurals and women need to understand what they are and weigh it up for themselves. In my experience most women, once they really understand the impact epidurals can have on normal labour, want to find a way of avoiding having one. And that's their free choice. Seems that many of these women are prepared to accept a fairly high degree of pain in exchange for a quicker, more straightforward labour.......

In amongst the women I know personally, I can count the number of women I know who had a 'quick straightforward labour' in their first labour on one hand. Actually I only know one. One woman who had a lovely waterbirth with no drugs at all. I don't even know very many women who gave birth with just gas and air. Just three. And one of those who did got 3rd degree tears.

Apart from the woman who had the (admittedly glorious sounding) water birth, no one I know had a quick labour (even if they were straightforward) in their first pregnancy. So forgive me from working with my own immediate experiences rather than statistics but from where I'm standing, this is a myth.

For a lot of women, labour isn't quick and easy. If you have a natural labour, from what I understand from my friends, it's most likely to be long and it's most likely to hurt. A lot. And that's okay that it does but women feel like that shouldn't be the way their birth should be. The desire to have a non-interventionist birth is actually the goal of most women I know who have attend NCT classes. And the fact that we've failed in that goal makes us feel a bit crap. I don't know why anyone would find that difficult to understand. It's very simple human psychology.

I don't for one moment think that the NCT sets out to make women feel like failures for not having quick straightforward labours. But it simply cannot afford to ignore the women who feel like that and, in my view, it needs to take a long hard look at itself and consider how it can avoid alienating women whose birth experience waqs less than ideal and get them on board to question and challenge and change things. Because from the point of view of a charitable organisation, to dismiss those feeling is doing a lot of women a terrible disservice. And from the point of view of one that wants to continue, it needs the support of women who didn't achieve that perfect birth, otherwise it's going to end up being rather more exclusive than I suspect it wants to be.

SCARY - your post makes a lot of sense, but the bit I still don't really get is exactly how the NCT is apparently making women feel like failures?

I've seen women beat themselves up about having a very medicalised birth. But I have never heard anyone who speaks for the NCT suggest that women who have interventions have 'failed'. I still think there is transference going on here.

I totally accept that the NCT may not be everyone's cup of tea. Remember, some women are very happy to accept a medicalised birth. I have one friend who asked if she could book her epidural on her first antenatal appointment. She really wasn't bothered about having a natural birth - she wanted it as pain free as possible. Which is fine. But she'd probably be wasting her money to then pay for NCT classes where there is a big focus on breathing, relaxation, and avoiding invasive pain relief.

I think it goes back to what I said about horses for courses. And if your goal is to achieve as natural a birth as possible, and you go to NCT classes, but subsequently end up having a medicalised birth either through unforeseen complications, or simply because when you get to labour you decide that's what you want, then how does that negate your original objective to try to have a natural birth? Yes, maybe you will feel disappointed that it didn't go as you'd have liked it (or on the other hand, if you chose interventions like epidural, perhaps you're glad you had that choice). But it's hardly logical to blame the NCT for your feelings. I think the NCT does a fantastic job. In my class, everyone hoped to have a natural birth, and some of us achieved it. Of those who had interventions, one had an emergency CS due to complications (she was rather shocked at the turn of events, but totally accepted that it was the way it was). And the others who had interventions chose them - they chose epidurals for pain relief, so it hardly makes sense to then 'blame' anyone for that choice. (Not that they did, I'm just pointing out that it would hardly be logical)

YANBU. What a load of idiots! I had 3 easy, straightforward births even though my babies were large. One midwife described my last (9lb 13oz baby) as 'a walk in the park'. No stitches at all. I know however that i was very, very LUCKY. That is pretty much all it boils down to, luck. Nothing i did or didn't do influenced the outcome. No raspberry tea or perinial massage is going to change your fate. At least one woman in that class is likely to have an awkward delivery requiring medical help. They are blinkered fools if they think they are guaranteed a 'perfect' birth. In your shoes i think i would have been wicked and told them all a lovely horror story involving GIANT forceps then laughed inwardly as their silly little faces paled.....

Thanks violethill. I don't know the answer exactly but I know that a lot of women do feel like that so I think that's worthy of investigation.

Leaving aside those women who want a medicalised birth (and 2nd and subsequent labours), can most women really have a quick straightforward labour? I have no idea. But if the truth is that most women don't have that experience, despite their best efforts, then setting that up as the ideal to strive for is setting a huge number of us up for feeling like we have done something wrong for not achieving that goal. At best, we're hugely disappointed. At worst, we feel that we have failed in some way.

I totally accept that it isn't the NCT's fault that women that attend their classes and go on to have difficult labours feel like that but the very fact that they do needs to be addressed.

Can i just add that the OP doesnt slag off the NCT ,but the mothers to be ,who in her own words were horrid to her . Im suprised no-one asked her any questions ,even if it was ,what would you have done differently with the benifit of hindsight . But mothers to be are often finger in their ears lalaaing at anyone who mentions that birth might not be a lovely ,spiritually enlightening , life afirming experience that they have read about in countless books , usually to their own detriment.

Oh and before i get flamed ,i was once one of those mothers to be

I felt my NCT classes were really lacking in information and pushed natural birth so much i felt i had no other option. I hated my birth and dread giving birth again because i wasn't prepared and felt deceived. I look back on my NCT experience with a lot of bitterness and think people should be more aware that they aren't just there to offer support - they have an ethos and will coerce you into thinking along a line that may not work for you.

So sorry you had such a rotten experience - they will all learn soon enough that natural first births are not necessarily the best route to go or the least traumatic.

That's not strictly true, chattermouse. Yes, you may be very lucky and have an easy labour or you may be very unlucky and have a truly stuck baby that won't come out for anything.

But a lot of women fall somewhere in the middle. Where all those coping techniques can swing the difference and maybe save them from unwanted intervention. I know I had to work damn hard in my third birth, physically and mentally. It came close to a transfer to hospital and ultimately a caesarean and yes, I strongly believe some of the positioning and other techniques I and my support team used saved me from needing that transfer or from stronger pain relief. I think those same techniques may have improved my first birth but can't prove it. My second birth was easy and I didn't really need too many coping techniques.

But please don't dismiss coping techniques, active birth etc.. They play an important role and the statistics prove it.

One thing I've noticed from MN and real life is that a lot of women who have a medicalised first birth are subsequently very keen to try for a natural birth subsequent times, and are almost without exception very happy if they manage to achieve that. Why is that?

I would suggest it's simply that there is quite a strong desire among many women to go through childbirth (which is after all a natural event) as naturally as possible, and in the way that presents the fewest risks.

Second and subsequent births are usually quicker and less painful, agreed. But they still hurt! If all these women who have epidurals the first time around are so happy with the medicalised route, why do such large numbers aim to give birth without epidural next time?

I'm just raising this because I do think it needs to be acknowledged that a lot of this is about a woman's instinct - not because of external pressure to achieve some 'gold standard'. My reasons for wanting a natural birth were simple: first, because medically it was the safest way to give birth to my first and third children, and secondly, because a part of me wanted to experience the event naturally - I wanted my body to work with labour, not be drugged up against it. I would say though, the second reason was less important than the first. And from talking to other mums, we were all pretty much in agreement in those reasons. None of us were pain junkies! We just wanted to do it naturally if we could.

The day that every woman who has a highly medicalised birth first time around decides to take that route for every subsequent birth, because she genuinely believes it's the best way, then I'll shift my view, and maybe reconsider whether we need the NCT. But while countless women strive to have a natural birth, including those who don't manage it with their first, we need the NCT to support them in that goal.

yanbu

I had the 'perfect labour planned.

I did antenatal yoga, I listened to my hypnobirthing cds and I hired my doula. I hired my birthing pool in the birthing centre.

What a fool I was!

After being in labour for 48 hours I demanded the surgeon gave me a c - section as my mum almost died when having an induction.

I did feel like a failure but also very glad to have one healthy baby.
What these naive women don't realise is that lots of women used to die in child birth until recently and interventions such as c sections could save the life of them and their baby.

I tried lots of natural induction methods and my doula was trained in natural birth techniques but try as I did, dd just did not want to come out. Her head wasn't properly engaged.

I am still horrified that the medical establishment puts a lot of pressure on women to have an induction after 40 weeks when in France you are not considered overdue until 42 weeks. I found the birthing process was a lot more to due with measurements and timing than I anticipated and sometimes I think taht I might have had a natural birth if it wasn't for a lot of teh shit that was going on in my labour with the staff. But I also may have died.

Unfortunately I felt a conflict of interests between my doula and the midwives. It confused me a lot.

I have read that women who don't have a supportive partner present are more likely to have a c section. In my case I think that there was definately an emotional blockage that interfered with the birthing process. When dds dad left us to go to Iran it was a big shock and I'm sure it contributed.

And I entirely agree with your last post carmen.

Most births aren't extremes - they aren't either a nightmare of inevitable intervention or a total breeze. Most are somewhere in between - painful, and hard work, and with the possibility of going in various directions. A labour that is long and painful could, if breathing and relaxation have been practised a lot, with maybe massage, moving around into good positions etc, result in a natural birth. Or, without those techniques, it could result in a highly medicalised birth. There often isn't any fundamental difference at the start of labour between natural births and medicalised ones. The birth has the potential to go in either direction. The problem is, once the birth is over, many women tend to think that whatever experience they had was inevitable.

Please PSM, don't call people who want a normal birth naive.

Caesareans have four times the maternal mortality rate than vaginal deliveries. They also generally have a longer recovery time and higher rate of complications.

Of course they have their place but it's quite sensible to want to avoid them if possible.

My friend is a midwife with many years experience, who has been instrumental in encouraging homebirths locally. However, she says that a high percentage of first births require intervention. The rate goes down with subsequent births. It must be right that anyone attending an antenatal class should know this and have some preparation for intervention.

I went to some shockingly bad NHS antenatal classes, run by a lunatic Health Visitor. She kept going on about how wonderful birth was, how you can breath through the pain and she completely ignored one woman whose partner had just left her and kept going on about how essential it was to have your husband with you. No info on c-sections. Wish I'd shelled out for NCT, they can't possibly have been worse.

violethill - of course it's about a woman's instinct! But if that kind of birth is as achievable as multiple orgasms in a first labour, do you really think that it's acceptable for the NCT to be peddling the idea that it's what's going to happen to them? It's disingenuous as best.

There are too many women suffering too much birth trauma for their experiences to be dismissed. Coping techniques and an active birth can't sort complex labour issues.

OK slightly at a tangent here but we are talking about births -
Friend of mine gave birth at a hospital in London that backs onto the houses of parliament and the london eye. The MW she had told her she could have a private room with perfect view if she didn't have epi and had an all "natural" birth because she would be more deserving than the other mothers. so those of us who laboured for 48 hours and had ecs are not nearly as deserving? Everyone I am sure would love to have a private room after their DC is born but that is an incentive not to go to a hospital IMO. I know nothing to do with NCT or original thread but wanted to express my outrage anyway

Sounds like an urban myth doodly!

If that were true she should have made a massive complaint!

SCARY - I don;t think natural births first time are anywhere near as rare as multiple orgasms!

Yes, a lot of women have a medicalised first birth - but a lot don't. And a great many more who have the medicalised first birth are very keen to try for natural second time around. Thank god for the likes of the NCT to support that choice.

I fully understand that the first time mums in the NCT class do not have a clue about what is about to hit them, and that hearing how hard birth can be is frightening. You might prefer not to hear that information, to try and wish your perfect birth into happening ( a bit like people who don't like to talk about wills in case it makes them die quicker or something ).

But, rose-tinted spectacles and a pregnancy bump do not excuse rudeness.

The OP was kind enough to spend some of her precious time with people who needed to hear her story and they chose to make her feel undervalued and judged. Shame on them.

Violet - sadly not urban myth, know of two other people this has been said to. One did have cs as last minute emergency and got the room but only because they had no other births that day (bizarro)and it was made clear to her that she would have to move. They got one night and she got the good piccies but that was it. Outrageous!

Re Multiple orgasms - that surely is an urban myth, or so rare that an oddity!

I whole heartedly support the NCT and the support they gave us. Still regularly bump into my NCT teacher and she does a quite stunning job IMO. Recommended to all my friends as something the DP can get involved in. The comic aspect of the marmite/mustard nappy was the highlight of our class, and our DP's were made to wear the backpack with the extra weight which also gave them a little bit of perspective on the small pg gripes we all had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Brilliant! Won't knock them at all!

poshsinglemum - you weren't a fool. You did everything you could to give yourself a chance of a normal birth.

"What these naive women don't realise is that lots of women used to die in child birth until recently"

The idea that the 30 or 40% of first time mums having c-sections/assisted births today would have died in childbirth in the past isn't born out by the historical records. The vast majority of healthy women got through labour alive, even in the days before c-section was an option. Most women who died from childbirth died from blood poisoning afterwards (often caused by midwives and doctors not washing their hands) or from obstructed labour linked to skeletal problems caused by poor nutrition in childhood.

"can most women really have a quick straightforward labour?"

Look - it's not about everyone having a 'quick' and 'straightforward' labour. It's about helping women to achieve the best birth possible.

If I could use my first and third births as an example: first birth - posterior baby - over 9lbs, in consultant led unit. Long labour - 6cm dilated by 10pm Sunday night, baby born 4pm Monday afternoon. I was positively discouraged from mobilising, encouraged to take pethidine which made me disorientated and sick, wasn't allowed to eat, had no continuity of care and was left on my own for long periods of time. I ended up having an epidural and then a forceps birth. The birth left me with a lot of perineal damage, a postnatal infection and a month of terrible breastfeeding problems.

Third birth was booked as a homebirth. Baby over 9lbs, once again posterior. Long, long labour - 5cm dilated Tuesday morning at 9am, had baby on Wednesday at 5pm.

This time I was at home with an independent midwife and a doula, who kept me resting but also encouraged me to mobilise, kept me calm and positive and made me eat to keep my strength up. The birth wasn't straightforward in the sense that I eventually had to transfer in to hospital for synto as my labour wasn't progressing. However - it was as good as it possibly could have been, and I felt so pleased. I'm convinced that if I'd had the same sort of 'care' I'd had with my first I would have ended up with a c-section. At 39, with gestational diabetes, a labour which wasn't progressing, a baby with an estimated birthweight of over 10lbs and a previous experience of shoulder dystocia, I can't imaging they would have 'allowed' me to be in active labour for more than 24 hours, with a baby whose head was still high for some of that time, without c-section being on the cards. My midwife was an NCT teacher, as was my doula and I can tell you - their 'we can do this together' attitude and their strategies for helping me through the birth made a huge difference to me, and to my baby.

"No raspberry tea or perinial massage is going to change your fate"

Sorry, but you are wrong. The research suggests otherwise. It suggests that women who use raspberry leaf tea have lower rates of instrumental births, and first time mums who do perineal massage have lower rates of problematic tears.

Sabire Again just to respond to your post to me, only my experience and maybe I am super fortunate but the NHS midwives I have spoken to thus far have demonstrated up to date research and good communication skills and I ask a great deal of questions.

I am not trying to get in a NHS / NCT debate - as I have no experience of the NCT, and perhaps it is just my fortunate experience thus far. Again, I don't think that this is what the OP wanted either - she was just sharing her experience.

I would add that there are also maternity statistics ( and I realise that statistics are only that) but you can obviously look into issues such as:

Quality of care in labour
% women cared for by one midwife during labour and
delivery ... and so on.

So if you ask at a hospital or maternity unit then you can access this information without any fuss or on the web.

So I don't know why the MW would not be honest about the birthing experience at a hospital as one can find out the stats with relative ease.