Are antenatal classes worth it?

[sophi1207]

Hi everyone. We are both first time parents and I am 15 weeks pregnant but looking into doing an NCT antenatal course I’m February before due date in April. I have enquired about it and it will be 5 sessions which will be 17 hours in total.

They are planning on doing in person which will cost £200. If this gets moved online, this will reduce by 15%.

I was just wondering if other parents who had done them thought it was worth the cost? Of course we could pay in instalments as well starting now which would make it a lot easier.

Thank you for any advice!!

All the info you can find online but it’s worth it to buy friends who are in the same boat as you

Not sure if it would be worth it to do it online or you’d get the same level of friendship

Mine were, but they were free and run by the NHS

This was my thinking- don’t think it would be the same experience to do it online. Thank you for your advice

I did one class on the nhs pre covid- that was enough. The cost of nct solely hoping to make mum friends that weren’t guaranteed or would probably drift away once back at work didn’t interest me. I imagine it’s even harder via online. Think I’d save the money and when the baby comes attend baby classes join mush etc

I just did 1 free NHS birth class, there wasn’t any NCT classes near us and I felt it was very expensive when I can quite easily read and watch YouTube videos for free.

I’d only do it to make friends personally (if you needed that), I was lucky I had friends pregnant around the same time so I wasn’t desperate for new “mum friends”. I did make some new mum friends at baby groups anyway, they are just that though, I had nothing in common with them beyond a baby the same age, I’d imagine NCT friends would be like this.

We did NCT classes, 95% of our motivation was to meet other people in a similar situation as we didn’t have any friends with kids at that point. It was totally worth it for us, I made a lovely little group of mum friends and also met my now best friend (is it a bit wanky to have a best friend in your thirties?!) and we go on holiday with her and her DP and our kids. That being said, I can’t remember anything about what we actually learnt during the classes...

My own personal experience of doing NCT classes was that it wasn't really worth it, all the info is available online and I made better friends at a first time mums group once I had my daughter. I found it a bit cliquey tbh but I'm sure it depends entirely on who else is in your group 🤷‍♀️

My hospital is running them for free! I have friends who did them in pre Covid times and said they put too much emphasis on natural birth too. Recent thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/4029456-nct-online?pg=1

I didn't do NCT but wish I had, two of my other friends did and now both have a great groups of friends from it who they meet with regularly.

Yeah we did it and I'm lucky that our NCT group got on brilliantly, all our first-borns are coming up to 3 now and we all still see each other (pre-rule-of-six) at least once a month, we have zoom chats as well.

They've been invaluable to me, we had our first babies together and now all but one has had their second too. Just having someone to say "is this normal?" to at 3am on WhatsApp was worth the fee in itself.

On a separate note, the classes themselves were very useful too and we had an extra one on breastfeeding support which was very important in the end. I did my free ones at the hospital as well but they were very basic and impersonal.

If they are in person and you are looking to make/buy friends then yes it is worth it. I actually did not get on well with my group and sacked them off early doors which I was devestated about. But I think my experience was quite rare and most people make at least a few good friends if not the whole group.

As a ftm I found the information quite useful. Our separate bfing one was a bit full on but the normal group leader wasnt too pro natural birth etc.

Definitely to meet people.. less so for what they teach. I found a big focus was on birth and less about after. I found there was lots if support around birth anyway and you don't really need that level of detail.

I did the NCT course online during COVID. The information was pretty basic - I learned more doing the positive birth company course and my own reading. However, I speak regularly with the other girls and we've had a socially distanced meet up. For what we paid (£180 originally, only £150 in the end once we got the discount) it wasn't a massive amount to spend for us to make a few connections with other first time parents, particularly as we're only the second in our group of friends to have a baby.

As others have said, a big part of the appeal is the opportunity to meet friends who are in the same boat as you. Pre-covid it was possible to meet mum friends post birth at breastfeeding clinics, baby groups etc. but those opportunities will be much more limited now so if you don't have any friends with babies I'd say it's definitely worth considering for the social aspect. Of course it is all very hit and miss - for every person who met their BFFs at NCT there'll be another where the group drifted apart almost immediately - but if you can afford it it's probably worth a punt.

I did NCT on zoom. It was a bit weird to be honest but the mums met up before birth and we now message every day or so.

I've done 4 out of 5 NCT sessions so far and they've all been on Zoom. I've been really disappointed, the information is very basic and our group just hasn't gelled, it's been difficult to make connections with people on Zoom and all just feels very awkward...

We did the free NHS Class but NCT in our area was more like £400 which when your a parent to be the cost just isn't justifiable and I felt it was just an expensive version of mum to be online dating.

Also we always knew we were having a c section due to medical complications and the classes were very much geared towards natural, drug free, or low drug births

I'm currently doing NCT (online due to covid) and it's definitely not worth it from a content perspective. Its very expensive compared with other antenatal courses. Each session is literally 4 or 5 slides and longing it out for 1.5 hours. Very tedious and I havent learnt anything. I already did the free "baby academy" online course (very good) and the postive birth company digital pack (also pretty good). The only reason to do NCT is to meet people locally. I hope that I can stay in touch with others on the course. However, its a bit awkward having 9 different couples on zoom. I'm not someone who is used to video chats though.

Also worth mentioning that the cost of NCT varies depending on where you are in the country. It can be £150, £250 or £350 in greater London for the exact same course. Personally I think that's a bit unethical, especially when theyre all taking place online!

Thank you everyone for your advice! Think I might avoid NCT and stick to the free Baby academy class and see what I think.

I did NCT mostly to meet people to meet up with during maternity leave - it was great for that and we're still in touch now 6 years on. A couple of the stay at home mums are now best friends.

The classes themselves were ok, the teacher was good. Most of it was easily read online. The best class by far was the breastfeeding one which was longer and taught by a different lady who also ran a local breastfeeding support group and gave us her contact details in case we had any issues feeding.

Yes for the friends you'll make. My DD is 2 and we all still see each other regularly and some are now on their second mat leaves with second babies of similar age.

@EveningReflection

I'm currently doing NCT (online due to covid) and it's definitely not worth it from a content perspective. Its very expensive compared with other antenatal courses. Each session is literally 4 or 5 slides and longing it out for 1.5 hours. Very tedious and I havent learnt anything. I already did the free "baby academy" online course (very good) and the postive birth company digital pack (also pretty good). The only reason to do NCT is to meet people locally. I hope that I can stay in touch with others on the course. However, its a bit awkward having 9 different couples on zoom. I'm not someone who is used to video chats though.

Our group was in person as it pre-dates covid but we found towards teh end of the course, everyone was getting on quite well but it was actually after the course had finished that the friendship group was formed. Individual whatsapp groups were set up for the mums and dads which helped.

Mine was and many years later some are still my closest friends. It’s not the course with the NCT but the fact people do it for the friendships (they do the free ones if they just want to cover what happens when you go into labour and give birth) so you are getting together with another group who want you all to bond and get on, which continues in either a WhatsApp or Facebook group (or both). Mine made a huge difference to me and I didn’t get anything out of the NHS courses. Obviously you need to be lucky to get people in your group that you get on with but many people do.

I did the free ones run by the hospital, they were fine, covered all the basics and there were options to do more on active birth etc.
Also did the positive birth company hypnobirthing course. Both worth it but I wouldn’t pay £200!!