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?

Steppy I'm not quite sure why the large number of question marks and your remark about teachers. It feels like you're having a go but I don't understand why since I only pointed out one of the alternative options available to NCT classes.

There are also Active Birth Classes - £295 per couple

Classes at the Portland - £317 for a couple

The Birth Company - £4,000 but that includes only one class for couples, first baby only and all your consultant ob care during pregnancy (and scans etc)

There are other antenatal teachers, doulas and independent midwives offering classes independently around the country. Please don't think I am judging - merely informing people of the alternatives to NCT classes and the relative prices.

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Although we keep mentioning anti-interventionist/anti pain relief etc.. I think that its surprising what some people consider an 'anti' stance - it seems to be just going against the grain of medical opinion! And although 7 out of 8 people in your class had intervention/pain relief Tutti you may be surprised how many desperately want to avoid that if they have a 2nd and all those skills in the NCT class are utilised this time around.

I couldn't get on my local NCT course it was over-subscribed. I think I should have approached them at conception or before! My DH and I did the classes at the ante-natal clinic and they were fun, the people were nice and the information seemed useful at the time. I found the breathing techniques on the NCT website useful and I practised these before the big event with great confidence. I practise meditation already. When the big day came, everything I thought I had learned and the plans I had made went out of the window!!! The s* hit the fan and I resorted to the primeval technique of shouting, tearing my husbands shirt buttons off and crying!!! Very dignified...and not atall NCT-like!!! It appeared my membership of the yummy-mummy birth brigade was short-lived. The moral of this tale..all roads lead to Rome and your baby will be born whether you did NCT or hospital ante-natal classes. I can think of better ways of spending £200!

Carolinamoon I wasn't saying anything anti-interventionist. Of course these medical interventions save lives! Like you say the problem is that they can be overused - having an unecessary intervention can be difficult to come to terms with. Who in their right mind would ever answer against necessary medical intervention? Certainly not me.

What I was referring to was that a lot of women become adamant (sp?) 2nd time around that they won't be induced unless really necessary/ be monitored unless really necessary etc because they realise the negative impact it had on their labour. Skills I was talking about were maybe assertiveness techniques and information finding more than tennis balls and massage (which do have their place too )

I won't even go into my labours here but I can assure you I do not have an anti-pain relief/ assisted birth/ anything stance at all. All I want to do is support women in their choices and coping with whatever happens - no matter what that is.

Starrynight: I really disagree with the line that 'lots of women choose less intervention the second time around' - second labours and births ARE generally easier! To say that women choose differently the second time is just not true, however much we/they want to believe it.

Nearly every woman wants a birth with as little intervention as possible IN THEORY but when actually faced with the agony and complications of labour the illusion of choice becomes very clear.

I do get annoyed with stories from women who had dreadful first labours and then 'choose' a 'better' second labour because they were so much better informed. It's really not fair to first-time mums to pretend that the final outcome is largely down to her own choice.

I think you may find that I didn't say women 'choose' less intervention 2nd time around but are 'adamant' they won't have it. The reasons seem to be that 1st time round they may not realise that some interventions lead to further interventions, but having experienced it they are more likely to stand their ground and stand up for themselves.

Believe it or not I am not making this up! I am only repeating what I have been told by scores of women over the last few years. You may have made the same choices in your subsequent labours but in my experience most women make different choices - for whatever reason.

I don't pretend that the first time mum can experience a more difficult labour due only to her 'choice', 1st time mums can (not all) experience more difficult labours than 2nd, 3rd etc mums.

I don't judge anyone for any birth they have whether it be home waterbirth/elective caesarean/ epidural labour. All I was originally pointing out in the 8.07 post is that sometimes people are attacked for taking an anti-XYZ stance when they are not necessarily doing that - but giving information (which should be evidence based) which differs from the usual medical info. And some parents who agree with that when pregnant with 1st one go on to find the information given valuable in helping them to choose differently 2nd time around. And you may not like it, but in my experience it is true.

Starrynight, personally I think anyone who is 'adamant' about the type of labour they have is doing themselves an injustice. Research shows that women who are hellbent on having a certain type of labour are more likely to have PND if the labour doesn't go the way they intended. That's what both my hospital antental class and my NCT leader said. You may have loads of intentions but in the end you have to factor in your body, the position of the baby and any unforseen complications, and be flexible.

I really did not want intervention with my (first and only) child, was well-informed and ready to assert myself about the necessity of intervention and so was my husband. However, in the end the only way my child was coming out, as the consultant put it, was by emergency C-Section. It would have been easy to beat myself up about this, but I had a midwife and two different doctors advise me that intervention was the only option, so I would have been stupid not to agree. I had been pushing for over two-and-a-half hours and the baby just wasn't coming out! Regardless of how adamant I'd been, there was no choice.

Starrynight: Do you REALLY think that first-time mums who have interventions are doing so because they aren't "standing up for themselves"? That's rubbish - they are doing so because (a) they are in agony and want some relief or (b) are in danger and want a safe delivery of themselves and their baby.

I think this kind of language sets women up for failure - it is my main gripe with the NCT's approach.

It's easy to say that 'most women make different choices' in subsequent labours - but again you are implying that women made 'mistakes' the first time. Most women have DIFFERENT LABOURS. They most likely would make exactly the same choices if they were having exactly the same labour.

I think we need to LISTEN to first-time mums and their experiences before we put on rose-tinted spectacles after our (easier) second labours.

OMG. No no no no no. I am talking about particular things here. No one avoids necessary intervention that saves women and childrens lives. Please.

I have talked to women who (for example) were offered induction at term +8 days and took it up because they were fed up/ felt pressured or for whatever reason. This then led to needing further intervention and so 2nd time they declined the induction. I am not talking about a baby being stuck and women refusing a Caesarean!!!!

I am saying that women often make different decisions in subsequent labours. That is what I am saying I am not implying anything else. I can assure you. I say what I think and don't need to imply anything. If I thought people made mistakes I would say that. I don't think that.

Morningpaper - you may be able to stand up or assert yourself - surely you don't believe everyone is the same? Women who normally can assert themselves are often shocked to find its not so easy when they are in pain/in a strange environment/find they have an unsupportive midwife. This is not rubbish. It has been shown that women feel happy with their labour as long as they feel they have had a say throughout - no matter what the outcome. Whereas women who feel all the decisions were out of their hands or who don't feel they were properly listened to are at more risk of PND no matter what the outcome. If all women felt they could assert themselves fully during labour then this fact would not exist. I am not saying it is down to women at all - they are often fighting a medical system of birth which is not always conducive to allowing the couple to make their own decisions in labour.

And I think you may be surprised how much I listen to first time mums - its a heck of a lot & where I base my opinions. If you have spoken to hundreds of mums and found they all choose to make the same choices in each labour then I am not going to stand here and tell you that you are putting on 'rose tinted spectacles' and I would hope that you respect me enough to do the same.

And BTW Lantana I also cover unexpected outcomes and coping with things when they don't go to plan. We discuss positioning of the baby and how it affects the labour, we talk about having birth preferences as things don't always go to 'plan', and we also talk about asserting yourself in a non-aggressive way. Feedback from couples has shown that this is all useful during labour & afterwards.

Well I have not given birth yet and I have to admit that it scares the living daylights out of me.

I'm doing NCT classes at the moment and I have to admit that I would prefer a little bit more details about the 'blood and gore' and a little less 'deep breathing enhances relaxation, thus facilitating the release of painkilling endorphins' approach. I guess everybody is differnt. I personally like as much information, even the 'worst possible scenario' kind to make me feel prepared. Other women that I know don't even want to watch birth videos. I can understand that too. Each to their own.

However, I think it is dangerous to lull first time mothers to be into a false sense of security, in that they start to believe that they can cope with the pain and panic of labour with scented candles and deep breathing. As I've said before I haven't given birth yet but all, I repeat all, of my friends who have given birth over the past tow years have told me that they had not been prepared for the agonising pain and sheer panic that set in when they were in labour. All of them admitted that they did not 'cope' with deep breathing, massage, and other relaxation techniques. They found it totally useless and whished they had not wasted their time on it in their classes. They all said that they felt out of control, and some said, that, given the chance again, they'd opt for the epidural much much much earlier.

What I'm trying to say is that if a women is repeatedly told that she can cope and have a 'natural' birth if she only does her breathing excercises often enough and then she sets herself up to feeling like a big fat failure when she does end up with a c/s, instrumental delivery, epidural, induction etc, and, unfortunately (whatever the reasaon) the majority of first time mothers to be WILL end up with some sort of intervention.

Surely, it would be better to be prepared for that !

...also I don't like it that my hubby is now sprouting these NCT mantras like 'it's pain with a purpose' or 'the pain shows you the way' WTF??? I want him to know about the reality of it.

...and, off topic, don't you all think that if men had to give birth they'd have already devolped a way of making it totally painless without all the side-effects?

What I'm trying to say is that if a women is repeatedly told that she can cope and have a 'natural' birth if she only does her breathing excercises often enough

Yes, luckily I don't tell anyone this. I have had the whole variety of women through classes - from ones who found the birth quite 'easy' (their words!) and didn't need pain relief and the baby 'popped' out right through to the women who needed pain relief almost straight away or needed an elective caesarean or forceps or etc etc.

And TBH a lot of women come to the classes with already very very fixed ideas of what their labours will be like and glaze over if you suggest they should prepare themselves in case it doesn't work out that way.

Like you also say some women want to know all the blood and gore, others literally glaze over, switch off or even leave the room gagging if you so much as mention 2nd stage! Some women want to do whatever the Dr tells them and others want to fight everything the Dr tells them - its all very difficult to balance the needs of a whole group and sometimes you just can't get it right.

And yes I agree with the last comment if men had babies we would have had a pain free safe method of childbirth since about 5000 years ago!

i didn't go to any ante-natal classes at all.
Read a few books, and that was it.

they tell you what to do while you're in labour anyway!!!

p.s. Someone on my last class nearly passed out when I mentioned the cord continues pulsating after the baby is born!

Starry wrote: 'its all very difficult to balance the needs of a whole group and sometimes you just can't get it right.' I know what you mean. Our little group is veyr mixed in views about childbirth. It makes for good discussion though.

...see I think what scares me most about giving birth is the 'not knowing what will happen' and the fact that really it mostly seems to depend on nothing but luck. I'm really trying to go into this with as open and mind as possible (and a little bit expecting the worst but hoping for the best, lol) and my aim is a healthy baby and that I get out of it without any long-term damage. All else doesn't matter to me, I don't need a 'birth experience' really, just health for me and my baby.

...and who knows, perhaps I'm the lucky one who 'pops them out like it's nothing'. Here's hoping .

Starrynight, I just took issue with the phrase "being adamant". I completely agree that being able to be assertive is very important; you will see from an earlier post from me that I said this was one of the good things I got from my NCT class. It is a shame if some women only get this after going through one labour.

From what people have said, it seems I was lucky with my NCT class. I didn't like the teacher on a personal level- no sense of humour whatsoever - and I was freaked out that she was still breastfeeding her two-and-a-half-year-old, but she really did her job well.

"I think what scares me most about giving birth is the 'not knowing what will happen'"

ooh, you're not alone there! We are all so used to being able to control every aspect of our lives it is scary to think we really have no control over this and don't know what will happen!

I know what you mean about 'being adamant' - I couldn't think how to phrase it. Thats one thing I find hard with this sort of email group - what I say often gets taken the wrong way because I can't think of how to say it & people don't know me or see my body language (IYKWIM). I use a lot of humour in classes and we have a lot of fun - but that sense of humour doesn't really come across on the computer. I rarely (afaik) ever offend anyone in real life - but it seems a speciality on line! Just have to practise I guess.

I suppose when you are talking on 1 particular topic too, people have no idea of your background or opinions as a whole and so its easier to offend??

Rochwen wrote: "what scares me most about giving birth is ... the fact that really it mostly seems to depend on nothing but luck"

I think that's basically true. You just get what you are given. Those who pick the nice births out of the hat congratulate themselves on making the 'right choices' and those that pick the shit births out of the hat end up feeling that somehow it was their fault for not doing the right things at the right time. I think we'd all be a lot happier if we admitted that actually, it's largely down to luck.

TBH I dont think any classes are of any particular help, other than meeting new people in the same boat as you. I beleive that a good unbiast pregnancy and birth book(dr miriam stoppards are always well written and informative) is all you need, i think as long as you know the basic stuff such as phases of labour/induction/what happens in scbu+nicu/about c/s etc theres not alot else to know.
i think classes can sometimes be too overwhelming with too much info that either scares people half to death/ they just dont take it all in or when the big day comes they forget it all.

I think that alot more can be learnt from speaking to other mothers and browsing forums like MN and the others...

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