The NCT are having a laugh aren't they???!!!!

[lubella]

I just applied for Ante Natal classes and the literature came thorough at £180 for a 2 day intensive course.

Before I sign up to these can someone out there honestly justify to me that they are worth it; I'm sure it said £100 on the leaflet I recieved as a member and I just feel like WTF??(&&&&!!?

I didn't do the NCT antenatal classes - my GP told me the NHS ones would be fine - which they were - but I did regret it a bit afterwards from the POV of getting to know a group of parents with babies the same age (most of the couples at the NHS classes lived in another village!). Maybe more so for my dh - it would have been his only opportunity to meet other dads, which I think is an aspect often overlooked.

I did join the NCT after my dd was born and went to coffee mornings, etc but subsequently moved and didn't really keep in touch with anyone I had met through that route. Luckily my GP surgery held post-natal classes (ostensibly to go through child development, weaning, first aid, etc but in reality to help people to get to know other mums). I have made some very good friends through that route so maybe worth enquiring if your GP/HV organises anything similar?

I agree that in some areas NCTers can seem a certain type - around here it is definitely an older, middle-class thing to do - I always felt it was a shame that mothers perhaps most in need of support would very likely have felt rather out of place at one of their meetings.

I think, had there not been this very old fashioned view of dads (or indeed, most things) I would have got on with the classes a lot better.

There were, as I recall, a couple of classes to which dads were told not to come, but also there were two more scheduled during the day so bascially dads couldn't make it.

Ah, we run our classes on weekends and evenings. Partners are actively encouraged (expected, really) to come to all the sessions, including the special bf one.

(OT: KiwiKat, are you coming to the booze thing on Monday? I plan to make it, finally.)

My experience of the NCT as an organisation has been, to put it mildly, terrible . So much that I nearly cancelled my classes because I was so wound up beforehand. But the class has been great; the people I've met are similar-ish age and a bit more like minded (although out of all the couples, only 1 is trying for natural homebirth, which stamped on my prejudgement of the people that would go to them) and the teacher is not at all what I expected - much more balanced....

OK I think I ought really to say something now...
£180 does seem expensive, and if you have difficulty paying then you can ask for a lower fee - the NCT are a charity and there should be no barriers to entry.
The fee is for two people, and will include membership for the year so effectively that works out at £36 per person per day.
the class teacher is a trained professional and she does, not unreasonably, need to be paid.
there are lots of costs to cover, in terms of admin, room hire and things the teacher needs to buy.
it certainly is unlikely to be a huge money making enterprise and most teachers get paid a very modest amount, especially when the extensive preparation is taken into account.
if the branches do make some money from the classes, then this is of course used for the benefit of the branch members.
of course branches vary in their practice and membership, but the NCT can and does offer a great deal of support to parents. It isn't a perfect organisation in any way, but I think to dismiss it wholesale is a mistake too.
Obviously many of you have had disappointing experiences of NCT classes, and that is really unfortunate as it is (imo) a pretty crucial thing to learn about labour and birth and early parenthood. But without dismissing anyone's experience, I can tell you from my experience that many NCT teachers and other specialist workers (esp BFCs who get paid NOTHING) are highly trained professionals (it is an academic qualification with the University of Luton) and there are requirements in terms of keeping up to date and being observed by more experienced teachers. the majority of teachers also spend a great deal of time supporting their clients outside of classes, and of course tha's volunteer time.
IME some teachers run one women only classes for subjects like pelvic floor exercises, stitches and things like that, but the vast majority of the course is for women and their birth supporters. There is a great emphasis on including men in fact, in the academic qualification and in t he way teachers are assessed.
I think in most areas NHS antenatal classes are pretty tightly squeezed and often aren't provided at all. They of course carry their own problems of variability of quality and bias.
you might find that some of the people on your course drive big cars. some people come in big cars, some people come on their bikes. somemight be planning to go back to work they come from a variety of backgrounds. but personally I don't find having a big car/planning to work/planning to be a SAHM tends to exclude a person from being someone I get to known or even someone that might be good friend and support to me when i have just had a baby.
sorry to be so po faced about it but I think stereotypes and inverted snobbery aren't hugely helpful tbh.
please excuse me I think I may have PMT

god that was a rant....

HCC obviously there is a lot of stereotyping, but in my experience, the NCT attracts well-off middle class women, and if you are Not That Type, it can be quite distressing to be faced with a roomful of 40 year old women who don't do paid work or their own cleaning and spend their lives in some kind of homebaking competition when you are just an incompetent shy new mum living on maternity pay looking for company

I went to one NCT meeting and there was a discussion that started "I've got twenty thousand pounds, should I put it in an ISA or what?"

And of COURSE it attracts well-off women: Charging £35 for membership and £180 for class fees to THE PEOPLE IT IS SUPPOSED TO HELP is a bizarre thing for a CHARITY to do. Yes you can get discounts on the classes but they are not easy to come by - other charities would ask you to give WHAT YOU FEEL YOU CAN AFFORD and suggest the full cost of £180, but not ask you to make embarassing phone calls pleading poverty to get a reduction (and receive the response "Well I'll have to speak to the branch chair, and get back to you later"). I can't think of any other charity that works like that. Although people on certain benefits can join for £1, I'm sure that the majority of mums are in no position to make this kind of outlay.

but mp, £180 is a massive amount I agree. I have never heard of such a high amount.
In my town, the NCT members reflect the community. i.e. we have 70 members and they obviously come from the local community. which is certainly not affluent middle class.
also, many many people come along to groups who do not have membership.I definitely don't recognise the stereotypes you describe from my experience. not by a very long way. there are lots of young women, and lots of WOHM and lots and lots of working class women.
the thing is, the services that the NCT provides costs money. it costs money to run class. It costs money to train teachers and to train BFCs. how would you pay the costs of training teachers, then? the costs of training BFCs? the costs of room hire, of paying teachers? if you take the role of trying to provide women and men with a half way decent birth experience (and god knows the healthservice cannot begin to provide that at the mo) then the NCT is pretty much the only organisation working towards that right now.
(btw there is currently a mahoosive hooha about the pay rates of teachers....)

ah, just wrote a long post and then noticed mp had said it all for me...

You couldn't do our classes if you had a. no car b. caring responsibilities c. didn't speak english as a first language. you just couldn't. d. were on benefits say (£180 is way more than a week's IS) and didn't want to go explaining all that.

There are thus, at least round here, considerable financial, but also social barriers to doing the classes. now I have been involved with my branch and I dont see much interest in changing that.

In contrast to the really excellent and free NHS classes, which were exactly what I hoped to get from the NCT. I made friends there from completely^ different backgrounds to me.

I would like to see the nct use its considerable experience to run antenatal classes and breastfeeding support groups in areas that really need it, tbh. Bf take up among people on benefits and young people is appalling. If NCT teachers were running classes on council estates and perhaps in a room at the jobcentre, (maybe it does?) I would be more sympathetic. Until then, while it does excellent work for those who can access its services, it remains a middle class charity, and so I do not see it as a huge priority for my time and /or money.

It would broaden the horizons of some nct members, too, to have to go to their classes on a housing estate. I found it completely bizarre coming from advising pg refugees, pg teenagers, mums trying to eek out their benefits when their giro was inexplicably stopped to...discussions about tints on conservatory windows.

Lubella, if you don't want to spend that much money and meeting other mums is your main objective then you could just join the NCT and go along to the coffee mornings and meet people that way. I adopted so obviously didn't have ante-natal classes but I still met loads of people and made friends by going to lots of mother and baby things.

Message withdrawn

have heard very fine things about AB classes

though they are bloody inaccessible by virtue of being located in an expensive part of london with poor parking and transport links (northern line-)

Also-ABM does bf. But round here we have exceelent bf support groups. I have volunteered with them. They train local mothers to dispense advice and support. They are great.

oh fillyjonk there is loads I could say about your post but I must go to do the school run...
I am party to a long running battle to attempt to take NCT trained skills into the community. the barriers thrown up against our attempts to works as a team with the NHS/SureStart were unbelievable truly. so much wasted time and energy on their part protecting their territory. so many reasons hy NCT teachers could not teach "community" groups - and every tme one was overcome, another appeared.
have you heard of babycafes fillyjonk? they are a very good example of what you describe. they are doing tremendous work around here.
I do recognise the barriers and issues you describe btw. I think there is a great deal of work to be done, for sure.

Message withdrawn

I was amazed at the extremely narrow social group that the people in my class came from. I am not trying to stereotype or be offensive, but it was without a doubt just one type of couple who were attending: early 30s, affluent, big car driving, well-educated professional married people with vairy naice houses. (Plus one couple from Eastern Europe who were none of the above, and who only came once, plus me and dp driving our clapped out van and wearing the infamous stripy knee socks . It was a lifeline to me in the immediate few weeks after had ds, as it is marvellous to be with other mothers whose babies are just the same age as yours and just as obsesses, but as time went on it was harder to ignore the fact we had little else in common. They are pleasant women and I still keep in touch with some of them, but as a group it was completely homogenous.

The teaching was crap as well but that is another matter.

Oh and ditto we could not have attended without a car. It would have been impossible - the venue was out in the middle of nowhere and finished at 10 pm every week.

am sorry and suprised to hear of the impasse b/w nct/community groups.

I would be astounded if the group round here even got as far as trying to liase.

Think it is clear that different districts are very different.

and it sounds as though your nct is anyway more inclusive than round here. I do think that locating classes in the poshest, and least public trasnportly accessible, part of town, is a big part of the problem round here. As is having a teacher who, honestly, is not very good. I have also been a bit shocked that noone has realised that this might be a problem, and have assumed bad things about the nct as a result. which may be unfair.

I have much less of a problem with the coffee mornings, btw, though some in less affluent areas might not be a bad idea.

have not heard of babycafes, no.

Harpsi we have the same problem with Sure Start versus local SALT dept.
Latter moans about how much work they have,but won't give an inch to (fabulous) Sure Start.
Sooooooo petty.

You can of course just join the NCT for the 35 quid or reduced rate if on benefits

Most branches then run postnatal coffee groups where you can meet other mums

oh god, that was another thing, our finished at 10pm too.

so I got out of work at 6pm, got on a train then a bus, met dp who drove me the last bit of the way to the sticks, tried to listen to this woman and her cycles of intervention/why caesareans represent faliure etc for 3 hours, but quite often, I must admit, fell asleep.

And I couldn't really keep up with my classmates. they were quite lovely, but kept meeting in a. restaurants and b. places requring a car.

It is a great idea to attend coffee mornings, except that around here the NCT publish details of them in their magazines which are ummmm available only to members.

HCC: "if you take the role of trying to provide women and men with a half way decent birth experience (and god knows the healthservice cannot begin to provide that at the mo) then the NCT is pretty much the only organisation working towards that right now."

Ahhh this is something that I feel is VERY WRONG WITH THE NCT. The NHS is not providing a shit birth experience for many, many men and women. I have had consistently good NHS care, some of it truly excellent. The NCT seems to see itself as a big enemy of the terrible NHS and the way the NHS does things. It is hardly surprising that it doesn't get a good reception from state-run and DoH funded organisations. Yes, lots of women have terrible birth experiences. But I'm sure that lots of women who give birth with NCT training have equally shit birth experiences - if not even more so. There are good midwives and shit midwives. There are good hospitals and shit hospitals. There are good NCT teachers and shit NCT teachers.

I've never seen a definitive study that shows any difference in birth experience between women who have received antenatal training and women who have not. Many studies show a WORSE outcome in terms of perception of pain. Classes are not a magic formula to help women have a "positive birth experience", as though birth were just another consumer choice.

The NCT SHOULD be funded from those members who can afford it, people who want to contribute because they support the cause, and grant/etc. fundraising. Just like any other charitable organisation. It is like the Samaritans charging a premium-rate number because they have got to make ends meet!

"the NCT publish details of them in their magazines which are ummmm available only to members"

Yes, but you can phone and ask (a) for a copy of the newsletter (although they won't send them to non-members indefinitely) and (b) for details of coffee mornings. One reason they're only sent out to members is because they can be held at a member's house and therefore details shouldn't be given out willy nilly. The published list may well be a list of members' names and addresses!