Are poor antenatal classes any indcation of poor quality birth experiences?

[HardCheese]

I've just returned from my first antenatal class at the hospital where I plan to give birth, and was deeply unimpressed to the point that I worry I'm making the wrong decision about where to have the baby.

The class was on postnatal care (they operate as drop-in sessions and unavoidably we're doing the classes out of order, so postnatal care before the session on labour!), and was just completely basic. I'm expecting my first baby, and it told me absolutely nothing new at all, just some obvious facts about health visitor/midwife visits etc. The midwife giving the class was reading things off the back of an envelope, and while she seemed enormously nice, her English was very basic to the point where I felt scared at the idea of her attending me in labour because I had to really concentrate to understand her strong (West African, I think?) accent - I can't imagine being able to deal well with that in labour when my mind is on other things. She also misunderstood a very basic question I asked her, which scared me.

I've signed up for NCT classes, but won't be able to do them until February, a month before my due date - did people who did them find them more useful than hospital antenatal classes? And am I being unreasonable to worry that if the hospital puts on such sketchy antenatal classes, it suggests care in labour may be equally basic?

Hi,

I can't answer directly about the class / quality of care issue as my NHS classes (when pg with ds) were run by the community midwives, not at the hospital. But, was it just the one mw doing the class? It could just be that she's not much of a one for presenting / teaching? I guess if you're trained as a mw doing the classes might be a very difficult part of her job, especially if English isn't her strong point? It could even be that if she is nervous presenting that her English gets worse as she gets more nervous? I'm curious as to the basic question she misinterpreted though

Do your hospital do tours of the labour ward? Perhaps you'd get a better idea of what the treatment would be like if you could do an actual tour?

As I say, when I had my NHS classes they were at a local community centre and run by the community mw team but I still didn't learn much from them. In fact I don't think we covered post natal stuff at all except they probably must have mentioned that the mw and then the HV would come out?

We also did NCT classes, and they covered a lot more stuff in detail. We also found that our class was quite well tailored towards what the participants wanted to know about. So we did cover some post natal stuff. I guess we were lucky though that everyone wanted to cover similar stuff, as it must be hard to tailor if everyone wants different stuff? I've heard various reports about NCT classes and the coverage so if you are thinking of booking it might be worth chatting to the course coordinator who does the booking to find out what the teacher is like / how much they tailor / what they typically cover?

The main thing I found from my NCT class was that I made a really fabulous group of friends and they were far more useful to me when were all actually going through the post natal stuff (and indeed now still and DS is 3). I think covering it in classes made me feel more prepared / less nervous but I'm not sure how much I could actually remember when it came to it and you can never anticipate the questions you might have until you're actually there. I appreciate though that your issue wasn't really to do with how well you'd covered the post natal stuff, more to do with the care from the hospital.

I'm planning to do an NCT refresher class for this pg (and like you am worried that it's really close to my due date - it only finishes when I'll be 39 weeks or so, and DS was born at 36+6 - eeek!). If there are NHS classes available I'd probably go if it was convenient to do so. I wouldn't bother if it meant having to arrange baby sitters etc. if I can get a tour of the labour ward I will definitely do that (as am having this baby at a different hospital).

Sorry that's a bit of a ramble but hope it helps a bit

I'm relying on the tour of our local hospital rather than the antenatal classes (run by the community midwives at the children's centre) as they were rather rubbish. I went to the first class and never went back again - I learnt more reading stuff in MN

Don't worry, ability to give a good presentation to a group is unrelated to giving proper care around the time of delivery.

Yes, it would have been better had they a more confident public speaker for the course. But it's unrelated to care standards.

The ante natal classes at the hospital I gave birth in were dreadful. Insubstantial, unclear and just plain wrong at times. However, the hospital is one of the leading maternity hospitals in the country and the care I received in labour was very good. I wouldn't worry. I also did an NCT course and found that enormously helpful.

Thanks, everyone - that's reassuring. I woke up at 4 am and worried about it - not so much this midwife's shortcomings as a public speaker (the poor woman, I feel very unfair!), but worrying about whether she and I would be able to communicate properly at all if she turned out to be attending me in labour, and I wasn't able to concentrate fully. I'm almost certainly being ridiculous - and it may well be that her English deteriorates when nervous at public speaking - but it was the first thing to do with the birth that gave me and my partner a genuine wobble. Good to know it's not raising red flags for anyone else - I will be doing a tour of the birthing centre next week, and have signed up for NCT classes. Thanks again - I love this board.

Hope not, they no longer provide antenatal classes in my area, so that would result in an awful experience if it were true