Should I renew my membership of the NCT?

[SpeccieSeccie]

DH and I joined the NCT when we found out I was pregnant with DS. Since then we've been to antenatal classes, NCT sales and a postnatal group. I've learnt stuff, made friends and got some bargains at their sales and I am pleased we became members.

My membership is now up for renewal and I'm wondering if I should renew. I think I'm probably no longer going to benefit directly from membership and so my money would really be a charitable donation. What makes me uneasy is that at the postnatal group I went to the NCT leader said that their two principle campaigns were promoting breastfeeding against formula and campaigning for a reduction in the number of c-sections. As DS was born by c-section and I'm a failed breastfeeder, I felt a bit marginalised and not overly motivated by their focus. However, I have really enjoyed my NCT stint and feel a bit ungrateful not renewing. What do you think?

well, I had one c.s ( and a VBAC ) and did not breastfeed either DC, but i feel i have had a positive experience in our local branch. also it has got me involved in some really great stuff that will help me with my doulaing.. and i have met some lovely people. i joined when my DCs were 6 and a few months old as i took over running a playgroup...

I don;t particularly agree with everything they do, and i have contacted them several times with regards to different issues and they never respond !!

maybe as someone who has had a c,section you could offer your experincese as a caesarean rep for example, to support other women who have had c.sections..

I did renew after my first year and I did it because I thought that the charitable donation would be (in part) used to fund antenatal classes for people who were not offered them on the NHS and who couldn't afford to pay for the private NCT classes.

Re the breastfeeding, I can understand you feeling marginalised by this. I don't know what your experiences were, but apparently, some surveys have shown that one of the biggest causes of women giving up breastfeeding is the fact that people around them (partner, parents, friends etc) are unsupportive. If the NCT change this attitude in society, then it should help women who want to breastfeed do it without feeling ashamed etc. I was under pressure from my some people around me to give up bf, just as I had got it established! I don't think they are saying ff is "bad", just that if you want to bf, you should be supported (not forced!)

I continued my membership as I believe in their ethos, which is your right to choose, whatever your choice may be.

Also, making a contribution to the trust will enable them to carry on offering reduced prices for the antenatal classes to people who can't afford them. Something that will be even more important as the NHS are cutting back their classes.

Yeah, I do take on board that it's maybe worth trying to have an impact on them from the inside but they do seem extremely focussed on one or two issues. And I have put my case to people once or twice but felt they weren't listening. But actually, it's the idea that my membership would be taken as tacit agreement with their campaigns that puts me off. And yet, I sort of feel they're a force for the good.

(BTW not one other person I've met through the NCT plans to pay for another year and several have got nothing but bad to say about them.)

i personally would say re-new.

the current campaign about formula is not about promoting breastfeeding against formula. it is about campaigning to change the law to stop the advertising and marketing of infant formulas. this is to promote breastfeeding but also to prtoect formula feeding mums from incorrect and mis-leading information from formula milk companies. similar thing with caesareans ( i had one and i'm still very pro nct), they are campaigning to reduce the amount of caesareans where there is really no medical need - i.e. 'failure to progress'. the fact that you are only alowed to labour for a set amount of time before the medics intervene, is not always a good thing.

i am very involved in my local nct and i am a member, i can see the benefits of the money i donate, training breastfeeding councellors and ante-natal teachers etc. also more local things like funding a leaflet that we are going to produce about baby friendly places in the local area - where is welcoming to breastfeeding mums, where will heat baby food/formula, where has nappy changing facilities etc. the head office also helped out our branch with campaigning against the closure of our local birth centre.

it's completely up to you and you can still access all of the services provided by the nct without being a member. i look at it as a donation to a charity that i have benefitted from and that i hope will benefit other mothers and babies in the future.

I was a member for 10 years because I liked to think my membership was paying for training BF counsellors and I enjoyed reading the newsletters.
However my local group came across as unfriendly and after reading that the group accounts for two years running had operated at a loss because of summer balls that had flopped I felt that my membership was being used as a night out for the few so I left.

Thanks for your replies. It's interesting that they are all positive when no-one that I've asked in RL has been.

I am torn. I actively disagree with the banning of advertising formula or in fact any legal product. (What's a manufacturers motivation to improve their product if their no way of telling the consumer? None, so no reasearch into improving the product. This is a dis-benefit to anyone who has to formula feed. And there will always be people who need to formula feed.) But I really do love the NCT tea-parties and the sort of leaflets Beautifuldays describes which are genuinely helpful to parents.

X-post.

Wheresthehamster, I feel that my local NCT are really well meaning nice people so I like to think I'd be supporting them and the help I received from the NCT counsellor was great. Though she was very weird about formula, telling me she wasn't 'allowed' to talk about bottlefeeding (Can't be that dangerous, surely?). It's the national campaigns that appeal to me less. But I would be annoyed if my membership was spent on a ball!

It's strange that you should mention 'dangerous formula feeding' as this thread earlier - see Sabire's post - mentions 'health risks' with mixed feeding

LOL. That's awful, but I'm familiar with that kind of thinking - and I think the NCT does encourage it.

(Perhaps formula would be less dangerous if manufacturers were, say, given the incentive to compete by hugely improving their product and then telling the world about it.)