NCT or hospital ante-natal classes?

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Hello! This is my first pregnancy (I'm 14 weeks) and I was wondering if anyone had any advice regarding ante-natal classes. We got a place in our preferred NCT class starting July but I'm still waiting to hear from our local hospital classes are well. The latter are free, the former will put us back £290. How do they compare?

We could do with the money but at the same time it'd be good to know we'll have a good go at understanding how this pregnancy thing works.

I've got a few days to confirm the NCT one, so it'd be good to have some feedback if anyone has an experience of one or the other, or both.

Thanks!

I only did the NCT classes as my midwife wouldn't let me do both.

The NCT classes were 6 x 2 hour classes, so you do get a lot of info for your money. NCT was a bit hippy-ish, we did breathing practice, but our teacher also went though c-sections and interventions in great detail. Very little on after the birth.

TBH NCT is like 'paying for friends'. I'm still mates will our group nearly 5 years on . We all have 4 year olds plus younger siblings now.

Hi, I only did the NHS ones, and they were fab. Midwives very friendly and good at going through everything in lots of detail, tour around the hospital etc. Have you looked into the NHS ones and what you get, over how many weeks. £290 seems a bit steep when you can have it for free on the NHS. I went to some NCT bumps and babes groups, £1 per week and that was a good way to meet people, and through mum websites also. I would be thinking about what else you could get for the £290, and the NHS will be delivering your baby so they are experts in this!! Good luck.

Thank you for your replies! Sorry, I should have made the details clearer: the NHS class runs for 6 hours in total (there is a separate feeding workshop which doesn't specify how many hours it is), whereas the NCT class is 16 hours. So there is quite a huge difference.

Depends what you get on the NHS - varies so much between areas. We got 6 hours NHS - which I think is good. I also have a good midwife service - have seen the same person everytime, which makes a big difference as I feel I can ask her any questions. I know in some places you just get a random person each time doing your appointments.

Local NCT only offered really wierd hours - you had to do a full 9-5 day for part of it, so I didn't even consider it. I am on maternity leave as I can't physically cope with a full day! Plus a couple of short daytime sessions, which DH couldn't go to. It seemed to be arranged entirely to suit the course leader, not the participants which I thought was not a good start!

I did both. Very different.

Hospital - A lot of practical - this is how to get into the hospital at night stuff.
A lot about pain relief, hospital policy of various forms of pain relief, a bit about bathing and changing nappies, bit about making sure baby is not too hot/cold, optional bit about breast feeding (most people went for coffee here), tour of ward. Started at 10am , finished about 5pm, very little oppurtunity to mix with other people. Oddly enough, more hippy than NCT, but my hospital is into hypobirthing and active births! As I was "out of area" for hospital no one in the group lived near me and the stages of pg ranged from 6montsh to 39 weeks.

NCT - 4 or 5 evenings, and a Saturday, covered similar topics in a lot more detail. Very group led with NCT teacher as Facilitator. Lots of breathing stuff, but also role play of c section and discussion of interventions. I think the NCT syllabus is much the same wherever, but it depends on your teacher. Mine was very down to earth, not at all hippy. Very factual. A lot about the side effects of different types of pain relief. A lot more about what actually happens to your body during childbirth with NCT. As it was over several weeks, I made many good friends, all local and all have children born within 5 weeks of each other. We had begun seeing each other for lunch etc before the classes finished. Money well spend IMO and IME. Our babies are 2.5 now, and we have a lot of 2nd babies/bumps.

All NCT go on about is breastfeeding and birth without pain relief. They made me and my group feel like failures for even mentioning formula feeding and epidurals!!

Me and my DH thoroughly enjoyed our NCT classes. They were very informative and good opportunity to meet people.

I only moved to this area a couple of years ago and most of my friends are from work, now that I am off for a year its good to have met some new friends.

It all depends on what you are wanting, NCT are known for meeting new people, but if you have enough people around you with things in common and feel you have enough support then just go for the NHS ones.

I wasnt made to feel bad about pain relief or formula feeding, I think thats down to the individual tutor.

Good luck

I am 36+ weeks and finish my NCT classes tomorrow. They are pricey but it's a great way of meeting other mums, due around the same time as you....it's a very informal setting- in the teachers home. Sessions are long but you get plenty of tea/coffee breaks and time to discuss/ask questions..

I would recommend the NCT course... as others have said- it's nice that partners can get involved and is a great way of aquiring support from like minded women in similar circumstances. I would imagine that the NHS classes are quite big groups whereas the NCT groups are normally only 5-8 women, so it's a bit more personal/one to one- Good-Luck with whatever you choose!

I did both and met different groups of friends because of it, which is great. They weren't dissimilar really, except that the NHS classes were much shorter and included a tour of the hospital.

The NCT ones were more detailed about the birth itself but less logistical (e.g. didn't tell anything about where to park at the hospital, where to store your own food etc etc).

I would do both again.

Thank you all very much for sharing your help! I think we are going to register for the NCT course and might do the NHS course as well if it offers different insights, especially regarding the hospital. I'm rubbish at reading pregnancy books so I need all the help I can get.

NCT classes were definitely money well spent for me. Our teacher was balanced and open minded - definitely no pressure for a natural birth or breast feeding, but loads of information on everything. However, I do feel calmer and more prepared heading towards the birth process, and more confident that a natural birth may be possible.

In contrast, my NHS classes are supposed to be 3 x 2 hour sessions, but in reality have lasted less than 1 hour. They contained the same information as the NCT classes, but didn't really go onto any detail. I don't like being told what to do if I'm not given facts to back up what I'm being told, so the NCT classes really helped me to put everything in perspective. Amusingly, a friend of mine was advised not to go to NHS classes by her midwife as "the midwife who runs the NHS classes is really rubbish". Imagine how filled with confidence I was when I turned up at the classes to find my actual midwife running them:(

I think a lot depends on your area. I would ask the same question on the Mumsnet Local site too. You may get plenty of information on your local classes to see what works for you. In my area, there is no hospital tour (only a DVD sent out by the hospital), and my NHS group was full of women who went out for a smoke halfway through and never returned. You may be blessed with living in a nicer area than me!

As others have said, it differs by area, our NHS antenatal class was only one 2 hour session but I felt we got sufficient information about the birth, what to expect and pain relief from it. The disadvantage is that you don't get to meet anyone in that time. Having had the 2 hour session I don't know if I could justify the cost of the NCT classes though.

Do both if you have the money. The NCT classes are fine to meet people (defo paying for friends!) but are not the only way. I found that the NCT was preaching for breastfeeding and "natural birth".
Unlucky me, got CS and FF so the NCT brought me zilch but a bunch of friends.
If you don't have the cash, I would not bother.

i did the nhs ones as i objected for paying for something i could get for free, plus i did it to be contrary to the people that said to do nct as you get a better class of people there

i found it boring tbh and was told nothing i hadn't already found out about here on MN or elswhere on the web. the hospital tour was useful though.

I did both. I am pleased I did.

Hospital ones: 6 hours one Saturday. Useful. Tour of the hospital. Info like when they expect you to call them, what exactly they do in hospital, differences between the midwife led bit (pools, no epidurals etc) and the consultant led bit (for a c-section, higher risk pregnancies, twins etc). No real opportunity to get to know the other couples (about 20 others). They did circulate a list of email addresses but no one emailed round and never saw them again. Glad I did the class though.

NCT - over about 8 evenings I think. 8 couples. Everyone keen to get to know people with babies due the same time. Teacher very very good. Really enjoyable classes as they were so well taught. Very balanced - not hysterically anti-intervention at all (as per the NCT stereotype). Told us about things like c-section as well as about drug-free pain management techniques etc. Learnt loads (even though I was reading the pregnancy books too!). Got to know the other couples well during the course and everyone was very motivated to keep up the contact. Three years later I would count some of them as good friends and am in contact with them all. We still all meet up pretty regularly and we are now all having DC2! So although the social aspect was very important to me, I think I also learnt quite a bit which I didn't learn on the hospital class.

I think you already have some good answers here but I would re-iterate the point about the NHS classes being a lot bigger, so harder to make friends. We only had one short session with the NHS, but it was very useful as it included a tour of the hospital. However, the only people we got to know from that class were a couple who then turned up at our NCT class and instantly remembered us as we had been the ones who had asked whether we could bring champagne onto the maternity ward! (the answer - not really but some of the midwives turned a blind eye!).

Haven't read the rest of the thread, so sorry if I'm repeating.

It depends what you want to get out if it, IME.

If you're just looking for all the information you can get about ante-natal care, labour, birth, breastfeeding, etc, etc, then the NHS classes will be fine.

If you're looking to meet other mums so that you can form some kind of support group/make new friends (as wellas, obviously, all of the above information), then I'd go NCT.

I couldn't justify the price of the NCT ones so only went to the NHS one at my hospital. It turned out to be run by a NCT teacher who told us that she taught the same things there as at the NCT classes she runs. I guess she goes into a bit more detail in her actual NCT classes as there is probably more time and she doesn't have to fit in a tour of the labour ward, but I might have felt cheated if I had paid out hundreds of pounds for almost the same class with the same teacher.