Live webchat with NCT chief executive Belinda Phipps, Thurs 17 Sept, 1-2pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're very pleased to welcome Belinda Phipps for a live webchat this Thursday.

Belinda has posted on threads discussing the NCT, eg this one in April. So we're glad she's coming on for a bit longer tomorrow and can respond to your comments and queries about the NCT.

We're going to send over any questions you've posted by the end of this afternoon for some advance answers, to leave as much time as possible for questions during the live chat.

Hope you can join us.

Hello Belinda
Sorry if this has been covered before.

Just wondering if you could tell me why the NCT has chosen not to be involved in the national breastfeeding helpline?

And related to that, how does the NCT keep in touch with the other breastfeeding organizations and are there ways they could pool their resources more?

Why should I continue to contribute/be a member of the NCT after my child turns 2?

Do you think that there is an inner conflict in the NCT between being a campaigning charity, a provider of services (ie Antenatal courses), and, at a local level, being seen as a social group for yummy mummys ?

What is the NCT doing to break their middle class lentil weaver image problem ?

What does the NCT actively do to extend its antenatal teaching beyond the relatively well-informed and relatively privileged group of current users?

I realise the groups are open to all but this does not make them socially or financially accessible. Does the NCT have a strategy to combat this with the aim of benefitting those sectors of society who tend to miss out on decent antenatal teaching? (Teenage mothers, for example.)

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What are you going to do to improve the course administration? With two pregnancies I've tried to book onto NCT ante-natal courses and despite several phone messages, I've never had a response. Other friends have experienced same.

Was going to ask the exact same question as CMOT

the NCT has got, in some areas, a terrible repuation and seems to be something that is impossible to get away from

People associate NCT with breastfeeding for ever ,natural birth in a pool with no pain relief and is for posh middle class hippies

I have found in my experience ( have been involved in the NCT for 4 years) that head office do not get back to you, return emails or phone calls without a lot of chasing, which really put me off and I know others have had the same issue.

How is the NCT planning to open itself up more, so that everyone benefits, and everyone knows about it as it seems to still carry the same superficial and incorrect image ?

My children are 10 & 4, so I am going to be leaving the NCT this year as I feel there is nothing more it can offer me, although I work as a doula, I have found being associated with the NCT sometimes puts people off!!!

It;s a shame so much of the good the NCT has done and did do is overshadowed

Also, as an aside, how did you feel when Davina McCall started advertising L'oreal/Garnier products which are associated brands with Nestlé?

I agree with Lulumaman

Firstly I would like to say that I am impressed with the way you joined us on the thread earlier in the year - that was very brave.

I do agree with Lulumaman though.

I think that the NCT is rather outdated: It is still too close to it's "Natural childbirth trust" origins and things have moved on since then. I know that the NCT likes to put a lot of emphasis on it's campaigning - but most of this is in the past, and could be done now by other organisations, IMO.

Women are past the stage of worrying about an anti-medicalised childbirth and now want to be able to choose that if they want it. The NCT still emphasises a moral heirachy of birth experiences, where a vaginal birth with no pain relief is seen as the most virtuous outcome. This is greatly damaging for women. The NHS run antenatal classes and avoid this emphasis - but I've got several friends who did NCT classes and were totally unprepared for the element of brutal luck that comes into childbirth. So my first question is: Does the NCT recognise that it is perpetuating a heirachy of birth, and how it is countering the damage that can do to women's self-esteem when they fail to 'get' the birth that they want?

My second point is the membership fee. The membership fee should be entirely voluntary and as it is, it contributes towards the middle-class and socially exclusive image of the NCT. How does the NCT justify seeking to make a revenue stream from the users that they are meant to support?

Do you consider the NCT to be a feminist organisation?

How is the NCT tackling social inclusion?

Ummmmm I will think of some more things too later on but I've got to go and make a curry

As a volunteer for the NCT, I find it hard to reconcile for people that they are called "members" when in actual fact, they are "supporters". Lots of people think of the NCT as some sort of social club and get really miffed when that's not what they "get out of it". Particularly difficult when charity rules mean that they can't even get discounts as a member.

Any chance that the NCT will start referring to members as supporters? I also think that there needs to be more ephasis when people join, that local branches are run by volunteers "for free" and that if members/ supporters give something, they'll get more out of it. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by people being cross that, "there aren't more teas/ socials/ events" yet nobody's willing to help out with organising or running them.

Seems that members think that their £39 entitles them to things, rather than as a donation to a charity, iyswim. (Our previous chair noted that nobody who "supports" the World Wildlife Fund expects to meet a panda.)

Any comments on this?

I agree totally with MP about the moral hierarchy of birth experiences. totally agree!!

and there are threads on here that bear that out.. women told off/ let down by an AN teacher not discussing c.s in enough detail, or instrumental births or epidurals.

I think the NCT have to take on board the c.s rate in this country is up to 28 % if not higher in some hospitals.. so out of a class, over a quarter of the attendees could well end up with a c.s under epi/spinal or GA.. to not discuss this in detail or leave women feeling lacking in some way when they want to talk about c.s is counter productive.

All this is totally over my head really but I would like to say that I really dont know what the NCT stands for in this era. They arent represented in the health centres - community midwifes never mention it (isnt it all "Bounty" packs now)

The minute you cross the threashold of the NHS hospital the word natural is taken out of your hands. How many first time mothers have to be induced? once induced you can say goodbye to any control.

Yes, I am a very disapppointed mother with birth issues - twice. All down to inducement on the first which in turn led to cs which had a knock on effect for the second birth because they wouldnt induce me properly which ended in an emergency crash cs which left me absolutely devasted and still taumatised.

I'd rather they dropped the word "natural" and became CBT.

I am completely jealous of mums who get the natural "V" birth surely thats not right? But in percentage who many mums did get the natural birth?

Bacon, NCT now stands for "National Childbirth Trust" and not "Natural"- although I understand historically it was originally named "Natural". In actual fact, the current branding is "nct" rather than the full title.

I have mixed feelings about some of the comments. I am a volunteer/committee member for my local branch. I fit what some consider to be the "NCT sterotype" in some ways but not in others. The more involved I have become the more I have found it not to be the case that there is a "type" of member- and yet still the perception in the wider world exists and it is extremely difficult to change.

There have been difficulties at head office in the past in terms of membership administration etc. and I know great strides have been made over the last couple of years to improve this. Ditto professionalising antenatal course bookings etc. Yet, as another poster has mentioned, people often have extremely unrealistic expectations of their local branch: they want a lot of services provided for them but don't want to get involved themselves. The branches are all run by volunteers- ie. parents with young children themselves. We find it extraordinarily difficult to get members involved- as a result, there is a small group of volunteers doing lots of great work for little recognition. And sometimes the burden becomes too great.

I don't know what the answer is TBH. But I don't think the NCT is great at letting people know what goes on at a grass roots level- and of course, this will vary greatly from area to area.

BTW- the midwives and HVs are very pro the NCT in my area.

Are there any studies or evaluations that show that attending NCT classes improves birth outcomes or rates of antenatal depression?

Where did this page go: www.nct.org.uk/breastfeeding/index.html when you "revamped" the website, please? It was an incredibly useful precis in table form of the statistics around how long women breastfed for, when they stopped, why they stopped, whether they'd bf for as long as they wanted to when they stopped, etc.

Is it true that the nct has a blacklist, to deny membership to undesirables?

Because I have tried contacting my local branch by phone and email several times over the last few years, and never received a response.

gosh, I didn't realise that MN and NCT had such close links

I am adding that my baby days are long gone, have not looked on NCT website for yonks

Arizona - no blacklist, I promise you!

The usual reason for people continuing to call a local branch and getting no response is one of the following:

• you are using an incorrect or out of date phone no

• the volunteer manning the local number (and they are all volunteers) is either not very conscientious or is extremely busy or has forgotten to call you back

Thanks Belinda for coming to answer our questions.

Following on from BoysAreLikeDogs's question, firstly can I ask about the links between MN and NCT. The NCT website says "please link here for our forums", and that takes you to Mumsnet. Our forums? Do most MNetters realise that they are posting on a forum labelled as the NCT forum? Is there not a branding issue here, and in which direction (if any) is money flowing? And what does the NCT do for MN? (That's a question for MN Towers really not Belinda).

My second question is based on my experience as a volunteer for the NCT. I spend about one day a week volunteering as an area contact and have done so for a year. I still have a very poor understanding of what the national organisation does or, if you'll forgive me, what the Chief Exec does. Where does the £39 membership fee go? What do you do all day? (Can you blog to tell us?) And what do you do to incentivise/ cherish/ basically keep your volunteers?

Also, one last point which others have raised too. Do you realise that your administration of course bookings is a total fiasco, in my area at least, and my main task is dealing with disgruntled peeps who can't get on a course. The bookings person takes 2 or 3 weeks to get back to people. That just isn't on, is it?

They are quick enough to respond when you volunteer to help, I can tell you! I've volunteered several times and had a response within 10 minutes. In my first pregnancy I was 30 weeks before someone rang me to tell me that the course was full, even though I'd rung once or twice a week from about 8 weeks. In my second pregnancy I noticed an advert for refresher ante-natal courses in my area magazine and rung again, and again, and again. When someone finally returned my call she told me the course didn't exist.

Utterly shambolic organisation, frankly, which does nothing in my mind to promote the charity as being capable of successful lobbying, or social inclusion, or anything useful.

The breastfeeding helpline is sporadic but I did have some helpful advice.

Sporadic bf helpline?

This is an area of NCT's work where we have a recent study of responses and most of the time the bf line works very well....virtually all messages left are responded to quickly. A very few are not - this is almost always because people may not realise their number has been left unclearly and then it does not play back properly. Or they forget to leave their phone no. Or the dialling code.

In the past 2-3 years the bf line service has become very good.

NCT is a small charity which punches above its weight.

Most of the ground work of local branches is done by volunteers - they vary enormously, but that's inevitable. Most are great but you cannot expect super service all the time.

Specialist workers - bfcs, antenatal teachers, postnatal leaders - are trained and externally assessed to diploma standard. The training of specialist workers is one of the things money is spent on.

llaregub, the disappeared refresher antenatal course probably did exist, and was then cancelled. This happens. Courses cannot run with too few people. I don't know why your calls were not returned

I should have elaborated on the comment I made about the breastfeeding helpline, but I was breastfeeding at the time and I'm not great at typing with one hand!

I spent ages trying to get through over the course of a week when I found out that DS2 had tongue-tie. I tried ringing at all sorts of times but it was always busy. I did get the call returned once but I was asleep and DH didn't (rightly I think) want to wake me up. I was quite surprised at how difficult it was to get through as I'd got through straight away when calling when pregnant to discuss expressing before birth due to GD. I had some excellent advice from the counsellor.

I'm sure the refresher course was cancelled; but she actually denied that it ever existed.

Why is the NCT selling a LBD to give birth in in its catalogue? The Womama dress is an affront to all I thought the charity stood for.