Best/worst things about your antenatal classes?

[standanddeliver]

....NHS or NCT/Birthlight/private classes
In my case
NHS: (first time around)
Best - I enjoyed it all because I was just so excited about being pregnant and having a baby. I don't think I cared what the midwife did - I just loved having a chance to talk about having a baby.

Worst - Being told 'You can read too much you know' after telling the midwife I'd read that having an epidural made you more likely to need forceps. Made me feel like a complete arse. Guess who went on to have an epidural followed by a forceps birth? Yes - me.

Oh yes - sitting in the dark watching a film of someone giving birth with 10 other couples I didn't know. The midwife teaching the class got called a way and we all sat there in shocked silence after the film finished. It was a very disturbing experience!

NCT: (refresher class)
Best - the midwife who taught the class went on to deliver my second and third babies. She was fab. Also having the chance to debrief my first birth.
Worst - I had nothing in common with the three other couples I did the course with and really didn't want to meet them afterward.

best - meeting my 3 best friends and having the best years of my life with them

worst - being giving a plastic dolly and being 'shown' how to breastfeed it .. even though I was pretty determined (first time around) to bottle feed. Also, no info about bottle feeding, or sterilising or anything. grr

Best = people I met and made a fantastic ongoing support group

Worst = showing video of 'a typical good birth' which had couple looking serene playing scrabble etc in hospital room for major part of labour. Ha - I don't think.

NCT

Best - really good, practical bf advice
Worst - didn't meet a support group

NHS

Best - found out where to park for free
Worst - fatalistic approach to pain relief 'oh, if you come in and want G&A, then you'll never make it through without an epidural'

NCT

Best - Met a fantastic support network, even our teacher was fab and am still in touch with everyone.

Best thing though which wasn't just dependent on the people was that there were practical demonstrations of how the baby comes through the pelvis during birth and it really helped me understand why the positions, active birthing etc was important.

Worst - The cost.

NHS

Best - difficult this. Actually the highlight was when a bloke fainted in the heat and cracked his head on a radiator!

Worst - sorry, just can't be positive about our NHS classes, they were awful. There were about 40 of us crammed into a hot stuffy room while a midwife whispered at us and then showed us a video on a tiny portable telly. The video looked like it had been recorded over about 50 times and the sound had to be so loud it was distorted. She also answered everyone's questions with the same sort of attitude - You come in and do as you're told and why on earth would you want to do anything else?

Was offered NHS breathing and relaxation classes but partners weren't allowed and I didn't bother as places were limited - I left it for somebody else.

Apparently though there was a fantastic waterbirth class run by our hospital but it didn't seem very well publicised.

Best - I met lots of people who I am now really good friends with - even 2.5 years on.

Worst - It only confused me, too many people in a hot room I should have gone to NCT as well. (note the as well!).

Best - um...

Worst - Oh, it was horrible. The midwife really should have been running classes for teenage girls entitled "Why After A Baby Your Life Will Be Shit".

She made us draw pie charts, split into 24 sections, and estimate what we'd be doing for every hour of the day. So we'd meekly colour in three sections and say we'd spend three hours a day feeding the baby. "Three hours? Pah!" she'd scoff. "Cracked nipples, bad latches, wind, colic... You could be spending ALL DAY trying to give your baby food!"

Then she'd prowl round the room to ruin someone else's dream. "You think you'll be sleeping after that baby is born? HA HA HA."

I had a melt-down and burst into huge sobs and had to be sat down with a cup of tea. I missed the next week, then steeled myself and went back the week after, only to be faced with the same midwife grimly stuffing a woollen baby through a tiny plastic cervix... I never went back.

Best - made friends with people in the same situation I was (pregnant!) Still friends 13 years later

Worst - during the tour of the delivery suite the midwife pulled out some forceps and i promptly fainted.