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.

P.S. Can't really criticise the NCT in this case as I assume the teacher knew the OP had had interventions and that the teacher deliberately chose to invite her along in order to ensure the attendees heard a balanced account of what could happen.
Surely if the teacher wanted to sweep this sort of info under the carpet, she wouldn't have bothered inviting the OP.

As an aside - I did read some fascinating research on olive oil being used for perineal massage resulting in reduced tearing, which I must find and link one day on another thread!

I have not found anything research study (say within the last 2 years) on raspberry leaf tea though.

I think that before people have experienced childbirth their heads are full of fluffy lovely pictures of nonsense

So very well done for the NCT (of all organisations) for inviting you to dispel a few myths

Pity they didn't listen though ...

I went to NCT ante natal classes as a first time mum and the nct teacher was very pro the local birthing centre. Said not to touch the local very well known teaching hospital otherwise you'd end up with interventions. Was very pro natural breathe through pain birth etc.

I along with many others had to go to the hospital and ended up with emergency c section for various reasons. Was dreading going back to meet up after births with the teacher and rest of class but she was very supportive.

THink social side of NCT is fantastic and an absoloute life line but not sure all the holier that though approach supports anyone but the few whose babies pop out. ( Maybe being a bit cynical there)

Someone like you came to our antenatal yoga class and told us about her EMCS, and I will be forever grateful.

When it was all going a bit Pete Tong with labour with DS I remembered a lot of things that the woman told us, and it was of immense comfort. I can remember thinking - she got through this, and so can I and DS.

So, on behalf of clueless first timers everywhere - thank you!

' subsequent births are usually quicker and less painful, agreed'

Ha Ha violethill nope not always,ds was 4 hours natural childbirth apart from gas and air , dd1 6 hours but had an epidural as was exhausted and in agony.

dd2 was the worst out of the three, 17 1/2 later on, it was disovered that I couldn't dilate the last half centimetre for some reason, also her head was coming out forehead first instead of crown first which meant her head was at an unnatural angle. she went into distress and I had to have an emergency section. They said afterwards if I had reached the pushing stage her neck would have been broken.

She was also the heaviest nearly 9 lb 9

The more babies I have the more problems I have giving birth, I break the mould

LOL at the sweeping generalisation - people who have yet experienced childbirth having their heads are full of fluffy lovely pictures of nonsense?

Pinkfizzle, the number of threads started by first time mums about trimming lady gardens and getting pedicures suggests that at least some heads are either filled with fluffy lovely nonsense, or they are frantically fiddling while the ship sinks. .

sabire is absolutely correct - the majority of women and babies lost during childbirth in bygone years was due to infection through poor hygiene, or through poor nutrition and general health of the mother. The rates of intervention are scandalously high in the 21st century UK. Things like csections and epidurals are major procedures which carry attendant risks. They have a place, but not at the rate they are currently used.

A normal, unmedicalised birth is still safest in most cases, not all but most. And ironically, the most likely way to pick up a serious infection while giving birth these days is through having invasive procedures in a large hospital!

This isn't about having fluffy idealistic dreams of what having a baby is like. IT HURTS. End of. It's about mothers making a considered choice about risks.

It's odd really, because many quite rational women who would weigh up the pros and cons in any other area of life can be really quite blinkered about giving birth. Surely it makes good sense to look at the safest way to have your baby and do everything within your power to achieve that?

"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. "

Oh No stigaloid you're so wrong. If I have an ethos at all as an NCT teacher it's 'be educated and informed , and use that information to make the right choices for you.' Please don't let your bitterness at your bad experience cloud your judgment of a whole charity.

oh, I'm fine with the suggestion of SOME people having heads filled with fluffy lovely pictures of nonsense, as the precursor SOME cuts the generalisation.

"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."

If you go to the birthchoiceUK site you can find a lot of statistics on a whole range of aspects of maternity services in your area. Unfortunately they don't generally accurately portray what goes on on the labour ward, as they don't keep records of staffing levels on a day to day basis. Even if they did I don't know how revealing they'd be. Our local unit is generally fully staffed - there aren't loads of midwife vacancies. However, women still don't get one to one care in labour and they are always suspending the homebirth service because of a lack of midwives.

And of course midwives aren't going to dis their colleagues by implying that the service is patchy and in places lamentably bad. ....... I'm constantly, constantly hearing terrible stories about very bad breastfeeding support on the postnatal ward, but if you went on the information given in the hospital antenatal classes and in midwife appointments you'd never know the staff were anything but 100% committed to supporting breastfeding.

It does sound like the teacher tried her best to give the class the opportunity to see the less rosy side of labour, but that group for whatever reason didn't want to know. I don't think that should = writing off the NCT as a whole.

NHS classes are all very well but in my area at least, they seem to assume you don't have a job and can pop along at any time during the day! Even if I could have done that, my DH couldn't and we both wanted to go. We did also value the 'meeting other new parents' idea and for that reason too went to an NCT course. I still meet those other mums, and it was worth it for that alone.

I knew all along I was having a CS, for medical reasons, and told our tutor that at the start. She was fine with it (could see her visibly having to temper the 'natural is always best' discourse at times, but fair dos, she did) and we included coverage of interventions including role playing a CS (better than it sounds! ) which was very helpful. One other mum ended up with an emergency CS so it wasn't just for me either.

OP, sorry you had a bad experience. I can understand why you wouldn't want to do it again. If you ever did, I would be tempted to start off asking them questions to make them consider the possibility, e.g. 'OK, how would you all cope if you were told you needed a ventouse?' and take it from there. Make them see that they might actually be faced with this and push them to articulate what they feel/fear.

missimac I would have been very grateful to have been informed more about infections then at birth. Nothing was covered about these and i was discovered to be group B Strep positive, my son developed an infection at birth (through a natural labour that was beyond words of agonising - i felt under prepared for what was happening or the immense pain of feeling like i was split in half and being disembowled) and we ended up in hopsital for weeks. As a first time mother it was horrific. I had never even heard of Group B Strep or strep infection - there was no educating or information from my class - just a very strong bias against epidurals and a very strong bias towards natural birth.

I am due to give birth again in 9 weeks and am petrified we will go through the same experience although this time i will be asking for pain relief as i STILL have nightmares about the pain of the pain of my first labour.

Stigaloid - it really is the job of the midwife to discuss GBS with individual mums during antenatal appointments. It's not something the NCT should feel responsible for (although it does crop up in antenatal classes sometimes).

I think the problem with covering epidurals in antenatal classes is that it's hard to sound balanced. There are so many concerns about epidurals that if you mention them all, you are bound to give the impression of being 'anti', when this may not be the case at all. I do think it's important to acknowledge though that despite the drawbacks of epidurals, most women who have them are very satisfied with their choice and feel positive about their births.

Sorry - wanted to add, good luck with your new baby. Hope you get the standard 'second labour' experience - ie one that's massively better than the first! I'll never forget a midwife saying to me that 'second babies are beautiful babies to birth'..... I tried to remember that through my second labour, which was indeed massively easier than my first!

Our NCT teacher only asked the girl who had the 4 hour panting on the floor birth back to talk to new mothers about her experience. The rest of us EMCS/forceps/3rd degree tear no hopers weren't even asked .

So agree Sabire. First time round emergency c section second time was a 4 hour panter - totally amazing.

Well done OP for going to speak to the class was very kind of you. I did the same to an NHS class about real nappies and had a similar experience to you it can be hurtful.

I don't think there's anything wrong with WANTING a natural birth. I just think you have to be aware that that might not happen. I wanted DS to be born naturally, but I was pretty flexible about what pain relief I would have. In the end I spent 6 hours in the pool, then one shot of pethidine, then the rest of labour with G&A. People need to be flexible. I know DP's aunt wanted a home water birth and was utterly rigid about it. Her DS got stuck, so 32 hours into labour she was exhausted and still refusing to go to hospital IMO that is just stupid and dangerous.
OP well done for talking to those ladies. In the end they will lose out, because some of them WILL need interventions, and they will be unprepared because they wouldn't listen.

I'm so sorry that you had a crap experience. I'm training to be an NCT Teacher and I had 2 caesareans and I wanted to redress the balance of feeling like a failure.
I'm saddened that the teacher didn't step in to support you and yes it is most likely (in my opinion) that 1st time pregnant mums simply didn't want to have to face the reality that is "intervention".
What really truly matters is that you feel proud of having a fab baby and your ability as an extraordinary mother. They will no doubt remember your visit after their births and lets hope that they will be less judgemental with other friends.

I know exactly how you are feeling - I'd been so brainwashed into believing that an epidural was a Very Bad Thing at my NCT class, that I apologised, yes APOLOGISED, to my DH when I had one after 3 days of contractions, the final 4 hours of these being every other minute. I held off and held off on agreeing to a C-section as I was convinced it was the worst possible outcome. My DS arrived with a very large haemotoma from being stuck in a position which meant he would never have arrived naturally. I spent the latter part of my pregnancy proudly telling people that I would be delivering drug-free and in water and felt like a complete failure when I hadn't. While I'm fine now, I wish that my NCT teacher had gone through everything in a non-judgmental and balanced way and made us realised that there is soooo much more to motherhood than giving birth.

I did both NCT and NHS courses because after a couple of weeks I felt a little preached to and wanted to find out about the other side of the coin. My NHS classes were pitiful... they barely covered anything and I feel that I would have been woefully underprepared for labour and birth without the NCT classes.

Interestingly, of the 8 ladies in my NCT group only two had anything resembling a natural birth (2 ceaserean, 1 elective, 4 epidural with forceps) and when we had our post-natal get togethers this didn't seem to phase our teacher at all. In fact, she seemed really interested in all of our experiences and took on board the feedback we gave about things we wish she'd told us (like its common to get the shakes when you have an epidural).

I'm really glad I did NCT because my NHS classes didn't even mention syntoconin drips, forcep deliveries or vonteuese (can I spell that? no) - they really just reeled out a list of pain relief options that I already knew such as gas and air, epidural and tens. I went into my labour with a positive, 'try it naturally but if it doesn't work, then hey ho' sort of approach and thanks to the chillout lessons I learned at NCT I managed 16 hours of first stage with no pain relief whatsoever, despite the offerings. At that point I threw my birth plan out of the window and went for whatever they'd give me and the great thing was that I knew what was going on, I knew what my options were, I knew what the pros and cons were and I felt empowered to make good decisions despite the pain! I don't feel any NCT guilt for that and neither should anyone else. Giving birth is bliming hard and an amazing experience and I think that all good NCT teachers appreciate that.

Does no-one else meet anyone at NHS antenatal classes? Why do the NCT seem to have a monopoly on that?

My NCT teacher had two home births with nothing but TENS and gas and air.

I know this because on the very last day of the course we asked her very specifically about her own birth experiences, and she kind of dodged the issue a bit until we pinned her down on the carpet and one of us started twisting her arm (well, OK, not actually on that last bit... but we had to virtually drag it out of her).

At no point did she ever push her own experiences (and hence presumably viewpoint) onto us. We were all booked in for hospital births so hospital births were what we talked about. We talked about various kinds of interventions in a very value-neutral way.

Out of the six of us we had

one scary emergency c-section (undiagnosed breech until second stage of labour and baby very distressed)

one initially calm emergency c-section (baby two weeks late, failed induction, delivery of baby went OK but then mother had bad haemorrhaging and they had to sort of flop her uterus out onto her belly to sort it out ()

one fairly standard "emergency" c-section for failure to progress (aka hospital not being switched on enough to notice issues with baby's position until it was too late to fix it... but I digress)

one elective c-section (breech baby, wedged right under ribs and refused to turn)

one ventouse birth

one vaginal birth with no intervention (she may have had an epidural, I forget)

None of us was made to feel bad about our birth experiences.

Hmmm,
"While I'm fine now, I wish that my NCT teacher had gone through everything in a non-judgmental and balanced way"

If she'd been more positive about it and made you feel that there were just as many advantages as disadvantages to having an epidural, would you have felt she was being 'balanced'? Even if she'd had to forgo telling the class about most of the risks of epidural in order to make it look like she was being even handed?

Sorry - but you get the same sort of thing going on with ff vs bf. People say they want to be properly informed, but when they're told all the facts, they often feel as though they're subject to a propaganda campaign, because the argument seems so unbalanced in favour of one option over the other. The thing is though, it's not unbalanced - it's just the way it it. The evidence in favour of bf is overwhelming, just as the evidence on unmedicated births suggests they are associated with better outcomes (not down on epidurals btw - I speak as someone who had one for her first birth; they have a place in some labours).

"I know DP's aunt wanted a home water birth and was utterly rigid about it"

And what about those people who are adament that they want to give birth in hospital? Even though they would be more likely to have a normal birth at home? (at least this is what the evidence suggests). Are they stupid too?

I also had a very, very long labour at home and ended up transferring late in the day. I'm sure other people less 'stubborn' than me would have transferred earlier, but for me it was the right decision. You can only go on how you feel at the time, and nobody else can make that decision for you.