are NCT classes worth the money?

[bebejam]

I live in an area of London where the charge for a two day course is 200 pounds (the longer course is past my dates, and is 400 pounds!)

We're not poor, just average folks, but we are on a very tight budget where 200 pounds is a lot of money. It just happens that the closest class to us is in SW1 which is why the high price I guess. We are trying to make wise decisions as the baby stuff bill seems to add up easily.

My husband is wondering if these will teach us anything that the hospital parent craft classes don't cover. A lot of people say that the reason you go is for the friends you make... but in two days I'm not sure you'd make that many bonds. And I certainly don't want to part with that kind of money just to hear someone spend two days talking about how scented candles work so much better than pain relief.

Any thoughts?

...run by NCT teachers Sue W ???????? in their own time to earn some decent money ? By the way I don't begrudge anybody earning a living particularly when it's to provide a professional service....Wha I do begrudge is the way a charity allows such a huge differentiation in cost for what, to all intents and purposes is the same service throughout the country : The teachers all hold the same diploma via the Uni. of Luton, have undertaken the same training and deliver pretty much the same type and style of course over a similar number of hours and no I don't believe that the cost of hiring a hall is sooooo different...........The reason London courses are so expensive is that it is run by a teachers group and NOT because of the "higher amount of costs "implicated here.....

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2 key reasons why we chose NCT classes over NHS ones in the Reading area: Time and Quality.

We sought a class where both myself and dh could both attend and the NCT was the only one that ran weekend/evening ones...which was fab!

A couple of friends in our area who attended the NHS run classes gave it the thumbs down in terms of quality of teaching. To give an idea, most mums had 'dropped out of classes' halfway through, and these were mainly attended by mumstobe only, few dads made the effort. Also, the class did not bond...in fact it 'disintegrated'.

Our NCT antenatal instructor was brilliant...she was sensitive, extremely knowledgeable and very professional. We all went away happy with the reassurance and peace of mind that books failed to convey.

I had a caesarean with my dd and never felt like a failure like some others here have expressed. Natural birth was encouraged and painrelief options was explained but not frowned upon (ott). I guess it does depend very much on which instructor you get.

9 of 10 mums still meet regularly - with those that have gone back to full time employment. Our children celebrated their 1st birthday in our local church hall and we're arranging a family day out over a weekend in the summer. I meet new mums all the time but the antenatal class seems to have provided that magical, special bond that lasts.

Highly recommend NCT classes for mums-and-dads-to-be who aren't keen to take too much time off for antenatal classes.

As for post natal support nothing beats NCT breastfeeding counselling and support. I suffered from thrush 4 months into breastfeeding - agony!! Doctors and health visitors had absolutely NO clue and failed to diagnose the problem!? - and strangely enough, my NCT counsellor listened and put in lots of time and eventually sorted me out.

For all the good work they have done for me, I'd happily pay £90+ antenatal class fee and £26 in annual membership to keep the charity going so other mums (esp new mums) may too benefit.

I guess it's only fair for those who can afford to contribute their bit, as the NCT does care for everyone, members or not.

"The reason London courses are so expensive is that it is run by a teachers group and NOT because of the "higher amount of costs "implicated here..... "

This is over simplified. Not all courses run in London are run by a teachers group - not by a veeeeery long shot. Teachers groups are in the minority compared with teachers working for the branches. Therefore if teachers groups were the reasons for the high prices in london you would find lots and lots of courses around which were very much cheaper...and are there?

I agree, however that people should have easy access to reduced places which is not the case at the moment - and hopefully the NCT is trying to sort this out at the moment.

BTW I think the consultation document was sent out the year before last - it certainly feels that long ago to me anyway

I went to my first NCT class yesterday.

I'm planning on going to the NHS ones as well as I'm totally clueless.

The reason I have booked the NCT ones is that the NHS ones don't allow partners and I wanted hubby to be involved and at least know something about childbirth since he's going to be my birthpartner (if I don't change my mind about that, but that's a whole other thread lol).

My class costs £80 and runs for 8 evenings (app 2 hours each). There are 8 couples in my class and they seem a very varied bunch, which I think is a good thing.

I'm not sure about my teacher yet. She seems very knowledgable but a bit stiff and certainly has very preconceived ideas, e.g. when she asked us what we wanted to cover in our classes and one of the partners said he wanted to know the difference between all the formula feeds she snapped (yes snapped) at him that this would certainly not be discussed in the classes as it is NCT policy to encourage breastfeeding. That made the man very upset as his wife (who wasn't there for the first class) is an epileptic and is not allowed to breastfeed because of the strong medication she has to take, and she would risk her health if she stopped taking her meds. We were all shocked by the attitude of the teacher, and we will bring it up in our evaluation later on.

What I liked about the class was that hubby and I were finally discussing pregnancy and birth on the way back in the car, so I feel like he's becoming more involved (although he has some strange views).

Rochwen - I thought nct had to respect the parents choice in how they choose to feed their baby. Terrible reponse from your teacher. They might not have the info or training on formula? but she should at least be supportive to that family. I did a course a while ago and found it helpful in terms of getting to know other mums and also for bf info.

milward, I don't think the teacher knew about the medical history of the woman. I hope she will be more sensitive to them during the next class.

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SO what are they going to do? Look away when it comes to the push! ffs......they should know about it all. Didn't do NCT, just did NHS - they were okay (thou' I felt my age )

I haven't had any experience with the NCT classes but wanted to share why I haven't booked classes with them. I was looking for information about their classes on the NCT website which gave me a vague list of classes and told me to ring the NCT number. Rang the NCT number and they gave me the number for the NCT teacher for Northwest London and told me to listen to the recorded message carefully and do what it said. So i rang that number which went through to an answer phone with instructions to write my name and address and due date on 2 post-it notes and send them to her address along with a SASE and she would write to tell me what class I could attend.

Now, I appreciate, that this woman is probably very busy and possible bombarded with calls but this 'system' in this day and age is frankly rediculous. I would have liked information on what types of classes were offered, what was covered, where they were located etc without the hassle of having to communicate via post-it note.

In the end I booked a 2 day seminar with Active Birth which I'll go to in August simply because all the information I needed was there on their (professional looking) web site and they had a real phone number where I could talk to a real person.

I'm sure the NCT do very good work and have heard lots of positive things from other people, but the lack of organisation just put me off completely.

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Just to add to this, booking secretaries are volunteers, normally with young children at home and often jobs too. Our booking secretary has recieved over 70 calls in the last 2 weeks! Not surprisingly she will be standing down in Nov at the AGM and although people are perfectly happy to moan - once they realise the work involved they run a mile in the opposite direction rather than get involved and help to provide a 'professional' impression!

As a first contact its not ideal - but I just wish with all my heart that people realised that every single person they speak to locally, whether it be about a nearly new sale, a coffee group, becoming a member, an event, booking classes etc is someone who is unselfishly giving up lots of there own much needed time to give to them and maybe need a break sometimes!

Anyone who has found problems with their local branch and thinks its not being run as well as it could would be welcomed with open arms onto the committee to help out. Doesn't happen too often though! its far easier to moan and do nothing.

Sorry if that sounded a tad irritated but sometimes I find it really annoying to be constantly defending a group of hard-working volunteers!

Katts, I found my NCT classes very useful but agree with you re NCT's orginisation and info resources.

To get any local info from them takes at least two phonecalls and a lot of patience. It would be much easier if you could get the info on the web.

I registered with them over the phone and spelt out my bog-standard boring English surname (which is spelt how it sounds). My registration form came back with the wrong surname. I corrected the mistake on the form and sent it back but although the mistake was corrected at head office level, it wasn't done globally, so I still received mail from my local branch to the wrong name. They obviously don't have a central database. It took one letter, one phonecall and an email to correct the error; very annoying when you have a newborn who needs to be held the entire time and therefore have difficulty making a phonecall.

The NCT's aim is to support parents; they should start by making it easier for parents to get that support!

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I understand that a central database would cost a lot of money, but there must be easy and cost-effective ways for the NCT to improve it's orginsiation.

I have every admiration for the NCT's hardworking volunteers, but not for some of their silly and ill-devised systems, some of which are self-destructive. It is so difficult to obtain info that people give up and therefore don't sign up to classes or join as a member, meaning that they don't give money to the charity when the intended to.

I went to a local NCT bra fitter. She needed to order a bra in for me and said she would order it from head office and then send it on to me. I asked if we could reduce the bra's travel from two journeys to one, i.e. that head office send it to me direct. She explained that if it was ordered by and sent to her should would receive a small amount of money for her local branch. I wanted her to get that money, but I also wanted to receive my bra as quickly as possible! Surely there is a way of ensuring that such fitters get the money for their branch without having to go to the extra trouble of receiving and then resending stock?

The post-it system described below is ludicrous and I really don't see how that could not be improved for the benefit of the leader herself.

I certainly wouldn't disagree there - there are a lot of systems in place that slow things down (never found an organisation where that isn't true though). Unfortunately most volunteers working within the nct are just too busy to change everything.

The post it note system is ludicrous but as I mentioned earlier our booking secretary gets about 40 calls a week requesting classes - each call takes a minimum of 5 minutes and they come at all times of the day or night - we are looking at volunteer time for this alone being at least 3 and a half hours! Before even mentioning sending out booking forms, collecting them in and sending to various teachers, banking cheques, keeping records of who has phoned etc this is a major responsibility. What happens very often is that when someone wants to give up a post and no-one can be found to fill it that person continues but scales down the work to a bear minimum as the other option is that nobody will do it. This may have happened in this case.

Pick on HQ by all means - I do regularly especially bearing in mind it can be sooo difficult to change things - I know of someone who has created an online booking system so people can book themselves on courses and all the paperwork is generated electronically! Wow would be the response of most booking secretaries - and the cost only £5 per course. This is an up and working system and has been shown to NCT HQ over a year ago.... what is going on? Nothing. Its so frustrating! But I do like to give the volunteers at ground level a break

WRT finances - I think the NCT has millions (only about 2 though) in the bank which sounds loads but is actually only 3 months reserves which is the very bare minimum a charity should have in the reserve - so they aren't swimming in it unfortunately.:-(

I had a baby 6 weeks ago after going to an NCT course of evening classes, and I would agree with a lot of the comments made by other people about it being too anti-interventionist. There was a lot of propaganda about the need to avoid drugs and especially epidurals, and a lot of time was spent practising massages and talking about how aromatherapy oils could help get you through the pain.

In fact, only 1 of the 8 of us had an entirely "natural" birth, and that was only because she didn't make it to the hospital in time - most of us had epidurals and 3 of us had caesarians. I wish the NCT classes had been more honest about the level of pain to expect. Massages and oils were a complete non-starter, and all those classes practising them was a waste of time!

Having said that, I still think the NCT classes were worth the money (I paid £95) because they put me in touch with 7 other women in the same boat who I wouldn't have met otherwise. We are all still meeting up now and it's great moral support when you've got a young baby. Also, the basic information at the classes was quite good, it was just given the wrong emphasis.

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Perhaps this was a weakness of an individual teacher.

I'm writing a brief account of how each of our NCT classes went in a vague MN blog thingy here .

I'm just writing up the last two lessons now.

I can confirm we had lively discussion about all pain relief options and no 'single' message was pushed hard. All pros and cons of each were discussed. There was no particular message about which was 'best' - just a facilitated discussion. In fact it was class members who prepared this presentation probably specifically to avoid the accusation that only the 'natural' / active approach was considered 'the way'. FWIW, loads of class members seem keen on epis, and most seemed to think a medicated Third Stage was their preference.

I think (aside from the teacher) it is also about the group dynamic and how 'verbal' they are.

HTH