Come and have a pop at the NCT... how we love to loathe 'em

[volunteervole]

Why does everyone love to hate the NCT? Seriously, why?

Open up the Times today and you have Melanie Reid spouting about homebirths and casually chucking in a nasty reference to the NCT making women feel like crap. A quick search on MN reveals complaint after complaint along the lines of: "Oh the NCT, don't get me started", "Bloody NCT, what do they know?", "NCT bunch of smug bastards make me feel like rubbish", "Fleeced at an NCT sale" etc. etc.

I volunteer for the NCT (hence name changer here) and spend hours and hours each week running teas, putting pregnant people in touch with each other, hosting a website about local playgroups, trudging around in the evening delivering newsletters ... and so on. All for an organisation which seems to be popularly loathed. How is it that the NCT has such a spectacularly bad reputation? Am I wasting my time?

Because as a national organisation they are seen to promote 'natural' childbirth, breastfeeding etc and the perception is that in doing so they go overboard and rather than inform, make people feel guilty for not doing the 'right' thing. Not saying that is fair, and local schemes obv do a great job in creating support networks. But that is their reputation, hence the comments in the Times.

My experience of local NCT and national was very different.

I certainly did not see the natural birth/breastfeeding side of the NCT on the ground. At the coffee mornings I went to, I was unable to talk about my lovely natural births - you were only ever allowed to talk about horror stories. Mums seemed to be very reluctant breastfeeders who felt they had done their bit after two weeks. After that, it was strategies about getting your baby onto three solid meals a day, well ahead of WHO guidelines.

To be fair, the NCT is not promoting natural this or that.

What they are promoting is informed choice.

IME the day to day running is pretty chaotic and disorganised. However I made good friends during my ante-natal classes and still meet every week 2 years on.

Can't live with them, can't live without them.

I see where you are coming from wondering. It's interesting that they have that reputation, because I have in my hand a national magazine of theirs and it has a section in it on epidurals and on recovering from a C-section. And the local mags I have just delivered seem to be promoting mixed feeding as well as bf.

I have only just "got into" the NCT about six months ago. Have they acquired a reputation which they just can't grow out of? Or is it that we love to feel guilty and want an organisation to blame? (I speak as a mother who wasted many months beating herself up about bf failure without needing any NCT input whatsoever!).

it's a middle class introduction agency, no?

Meglet you are so right about it being chaotic and disorganised. Women at their worst, I sometimes grumble to DH. It takes all sodding night to run a committee meeting.

They can be a bit grim, but that's really down to individuals. I think having a pop at an organisation that is run by volunteers with the aim of helping pregnant women and new mothers is a bit off.

I thought the NCT were there to promote imformed choice, but quickly discovered that actually, the particular woman who ran our NCT group was militant.
She completely refused to discuss any other options other than natural drug free labours, and there was no such thing as an emergency CS as far as she was concerned. (can't tell you that for sure, she wouldn't discuss it!)
I was eventually asked to leave the group for repeatedly mentioning CS /inductions/ drug options etc citing that I was a bad influence on the group
I thought my experience must be a one off, but have since discovered it's not.
I imagine that is why it's reputation is so poor.
Pregnant women imo, want to make an informed choice if they can, not be bullied/frightened into a natural labour when it may not be possible for them to achieve one.

BTW this is 10 years ago nearly.... and I blame that individual, not the organisation.

I think it depends on your experience really. I live in-between two NCT areas - area 1 I wouldn't go near with a barge pole - snobby, competitive birthing, coffee mornings consist of comparing new conservatories and swimming pools and which private school they signed their pfbs up to - really alienating
Area 2 is lovely though - people from all different backgrounds and experiences - very friendly and non-competitive just normal people. I have to say if I had not come across area 2 then I would have a v. bad impression of the NCT.

I can see both sides of the coin.

I didn't do NCT classes myself because they were so horrendously booked up. However, I joined anyway and got very involved in my local branch, started training to be an antenatal teacher with them and so was observing and assisting in teaching some classes. I saw lots of new parents come through the doors. Some of them were disappointed by their classes and felt they didn't get a huge amount out of them. A few felt very let down by the NCT - largely those who ended up with very medically managed births or sections, who felt they had been set up for a 'perfect birth' and 'failed' (this is something lots of teachers, particularly more newly trained ones, are very sensitive to and it is definitely changing within the organisation). The vast majority got something very valuable out of their classes - a friendship network that would far outlast their involvement with the NCT.

My criticisms:

The NCT has got a big image problem, and they (we) know it. It is seen as being quite worthy, a bit too idealistic and not inclusive of all women. It has been trying to rebrand in recent years, but I don''t think it's had much success, in all honesty. It is still seen as middle class, expensive (although this is not necessarily true), over subscribed (very often true) and as an organisation which glosses over some of the realities of birth and life with a newborn (fair comment in some but not all cases, I say).

At local level the NCT is only as good as it's members and it's teachers. It needs the membership fees and practical support of local people to survive and thrive. In areas where membership is low and/or support is poor, the NCT is worthless really. Likewise, in very oversubscribed areas, the customer service can be pretty crap.

The administrative core of the NCT is shambolic and bureaucratic. Anyone who has tried to book a course with them and failed, and certainly anyone who has worked for them, will testify to this.

The process for applying and training to be a teacher is too long winded. It is a fabulous course - without a doubt the best of it's kind - but it isn't always recruited for and run professionally, and that has a knock on effect. There is a general culture of poor communication within the NCT which can be hugely frustrating for those who work within the organisation and those who who attend classes.

All in all, though, the work that the NCT does is hugely important. It's a campaigning charity and a pressure group and people forget that. It plays a crucial role in informing and advising the government and health authorities on antenatal care. We need an organisation like the NCT. It is imperfect but it needs to exist. We just need to work out how to improve the service it provides.

I thought that my NCT ante-natal teacher was great - however that's the only positive comment I can make about the NCT. My dd was born disabled, and some of the comments I had from the other mums were horrific e.g. 'maybe she's visually impaired because you had pethidine?'. I also had the local chairwoman phone me up to offer her sympathies for dd's birth. 5 years on I still find those completely crass and insensitive comments to make (and yes - time has mellowed me and I am able to see the good in most people's comments about dd). I appreciate that you can't judge an entire organisation on one branch, but if my branch was a reflection of the entire organisation...well - good luck to them.

She sounds barking ingles, and it's so difficult for the NCT to shed that kind of reputation from a decade ago. Maybe someone will come along now and say it is still going on.

Smallorange, I think you're right. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?

And Effie, yes, a lot of the criticism, certainly on MN, seems to be outrage that the NCT is not run professionally eg. answering telephone calls quickly, having cheap places on ante-natal classes for everyone, providing a returns service at Nearly New Sales. It's a bunch of volunteers FGS. I don't think that the people who call me at 9pm at night demanding information really twig that... Is this something wider about your average person being unable to get their head around the concept of volunteering, as that is deeply unfashionable too?

I think MrsMattie has it spot-on.

I was flicking through some of my friend's local newsletter booklet thingies recently, and every article promoted breastfeeding/natural birth/co-sleeping in one of those passive-aggressive ways that is designed to make women who do it differently feel guilty. "It's best for baby etc..." with no balancing articles to illustrate that while these may be best for the baby they are not all necessarily best for the mother.

I remember thinking I was pleased I hadn't read them in the early days when my only focus was on surviving, preferably without sobbing for a couple of hours!

V interesting post MrsMattie.

Just to add, my teacher trainer was fabulous and very interested in me as a woman who has had my babies by section. She said women who had had sections just never applied to train as teachers because of the image of the NCT, but that she thought it was crucial that teachers came from all kinds of backgrounds and birth experiences in order to keep the organisation properly informed and relevant.

I thought it was great when I belonged. I moved to a new area when I was pregnant for the first time and it was the best way to make friends. At a local level everyone was very pleasant and I lived in 3 different areas.

That might be part of the problem. I had no idea the NCT was a volunteer organisation.

Personally, I found them rather rude and patronising.

Agreed with everything they were trying to promote as an organisation(18 years ago) but hated the local group. They still look like they've got sticks up their arses when I see them around now - just more wrinkly

I found the NCT really helpful when I was 21, pregnant and didn't really have a clue what I was doing. My antenatal teacher was lovely, mature and very sensible and I got a lot of support after a quite difficult birth and a difficult time starting breastfeeding and ended up joining the local committee for a while. Wasn't so keen on the committee but it was a real mix of people - some were very snooty, posh houses and lots of money. Some were very down to earth. To me, it seems like a big group of individuals. The suitcase sales, committee meetings and antenatal classes all had different 'regular' people and different vibes. Which NCT activities you participate in and the people you meet changes your experience of it.

I'm very glad the NCT exists. I'm not in the UK now and having just had a baby here, I really miss the NCT even though I sometimes found them quite irritating at the time! I guess there's La Leche League here but that's not the same and is definitely more 'issue-based' and biased than the NCT. I always felt I could get support and good advice from the NCT. Harder to find someone to 'fight your corner' over here.

BananFruitBat - when I tried to book my antenatal classes with the NCt before my first baby was born I spoke to the rudest woman in the history of rude people. Honestly! She made me cry, she was that much of a narky bitch. Maybe because it is a volunteer-run organisation, there are unfortunately some poorly trained, unprofessional people in client-facing positions. That's obviosuly crap, seeing as it is such a special yet vulnerable time in the lives of expectant parents.

lol!@ellingwoman. Our local branch is great - a real mixed bunch and all lovely. But I have to admit, the branch in my old area were all a bit po-faced and there was more than one totally batty lentil weaver.

Ok a friend of mine is training to be a NCT teacher I find them too much. I was brought up by hippies both my mum and mil had homebirths, breastfed and never felt the need to rub anyones face in it. I breastfed but never managed a homebirth as was induced with dd and had to go in to hospital in end stage labour as very large ds was a bit stuck although made a suprise appearance just after arriving, he did have shoulder dystosia though so pleased we went in.(sp?).

My friend, our now rather not so much friends comments usually go like this

To me about birth "poor you, you never got to experience how an ideal birth did you?"

About a woman warming a bottle for crying newborn in front of a friend of ours who tried really hard to breastfeed but had inverted nipples and ended up giving up,
"god its like child abuse having a baby rooting for a feed and not just giving it one and who'd feed there baby that shit????" Well both of us actually.

I don't think its the NCT i just think its the type of people it now attracts and as anyone can train it tends to be people who are abit leftie about breastfeeding and birth. My experience of them has been nothing but smugness and guilt inducing.
Another friend of hers who is also heavily involved in the NCT told me that she didn't experience any pain during the birth of her ds instead she felt the same feelings as she has when she makes love to her dh, that it was a bonding experience for her.Boak, Oh please, i was sitting there with my bloody infected sutures feeling like the worlds worst mother/wife wondering what i'd done so bloody wrong. It actually upsets me greatly that people like this have influence over first time mums.

I can say i heart the la leche ladies they have been much more useful.

My NCt teacher at the ante-natal group i went to was ok but did set us up for unrealistic expectations of the birth and as for friendly, completely the opposite infact.

The post-natal group was rubbish, middle class and judgemental.

A friend of mine has also become heavily involved in her local (not my) branch and become patronising, sanctimonious and a complete NCT obsessive TBH and comes out with the usual contrived clpa trap that you hear about epidurals/interventions etc.

Not a fan I'm afraid.