NCT courses - experiences or recommendations?

[phoenixrose314]

I am 21+3 with a much-wanted pregnancy after three miscarriages, and I am eager to go on an antenatal course as have next to no experience with babies whatsoever!

I looked up the NCT course and was quite happy with everything until I saw the price - almost two hundred pounds including membership is a lot of money to shell out this close to Christmas when we've also just had to replace our boiler, pay the excess on a motorbike accident and buying lots of new baby things!

So I was just wondering if it was worth the money - I do really want to do it but I need to justify spending the money, somehow... Can anyone tell me if they have had good or bad experiences with theirs? What kinds of things were covered in the sessions?

Thanks in advance, any advice appreciated.

DH and I did NCT classes after moving here when I was pg and so we didn't really know anyone. It was a fantastic way to meet a lot of people - I've made a couple of good friends and am still in touch with most of the antenatal class (DD is 17mo). So, from that perspective, it was definitely worth the money for me.

But, I didn't think much of the classes themselves. I knew most of the info from hanging about on mumsnet and the classes really focused on labour without much practical advice about after the birth. Plus our teacher was very anti-intervention and drugs and that attitude wasn't great for me as I knew I'd probably have to be induced early.

We did NCT before DC1 and I wish we hadn't. Our teacher was rubbish and gave lots of misleading, inaccurate and blatantly wrong information (as pointed out by the doctor couple we had on the course). The whole course was very anti intervention, anti medical profession and focused solely on giving birth rather than looking after baby. The teacher was very judgemental and seemed to imply that anyone can have a 'good' birth, it's just a matter of will power... She even told one of the mums afterwards at our post birth get together that it was unfortunate she had 'failed to give birth naturally' (she had had a crash section due to serious medical complications threatening her and her baby's life!). All of us (5 couples) thought she was way out of line and the mum in question was very upset. I am not sure how NCT vets the teachers it uses but our teacher had been running courses for years and as far as I know, still does.

I'm pregnant with my first and worried about childbirth, I've been trying to decide whether I'd be better off attending some sort of class or would it be more likely to put me off (I really don't want to watch a video or sit around in a circle panting), so I asked one of my customers who is a former midwife/now nurse and she said if I do decide to attend one to avoid anything to do with the NCT, she said they're very 'pain is good' and patronising and that they were always told to promote NCT but none of them did as they didn't like the methods.

Dogsmum if you are anxious about child birth hypnobirthing would be perfect for you, with NCT you could get lucky or you could get one like mine who made out that every option other than natural woo home birth was a horror story which wont help

my hypnobirthing course covered all the stages of labour stuff that you do in antenatal class but in a much much more postitive reassuring gentle way