Antenatal Classes (NCT)

[glasspaw]

Hi everyone. I’m currently at 17 weeks with baby number 1 and am wondering whether to bother with antenatal classes. For those of you who have had children previously, did you find them useful? And for those who haven’t, are you considering going for them?

I spoke to my midwife about the options and my main concern is that we are new to the area and don’t know any other parents, so she said that it would probably be worth doing them as an opportunity to meet new people.

I’m guessing there are other (read:cheaper and less time consuming) ways of socialising with new local parents-to-be though. So if I did them then I’d want to be sure that we actually learn something useful.

Would welcome your thoughts 😊

Oh and I never did them because they were too far away and I was too grumpy and too late. I did regret this later although I did lots of groups and made friends because it would have been nice for my partner.

Definitely worth it for the group factor as new parents and great for the early 3am chats 😄

[quote WheelieBinPrincess]@myheartskippedabeat you got off lightly- ours was £320 [/quote]
Jesus Christ I'd never have booked if it was that much I felt robbed as it was

The woman was dreadful
The other parents didn't want to mix they thought they were a cut above
The resources were dirty and old and grotty
The venue was a horrible hall with plastic seats and it was winter and Cold

And the woman one week had everyone other than me sat on the floor drawing "what we thought our room in hospital might look like"

Grown ups not kids

It was hideous then my baby came early so I missed the last 2 sessions

I asked for a full refund I was outraged they offered me 2/6ths I threatened them with small claims got the lot back

Then they emailed did I want to go to a reunion and by the way pay for you own meal

No I bloody didn't I was very busy watching some paint dry that day

[quote Quincejam]@myheartskippedabeat when I did mine last year, I researched their qualifications and they all do a degree in antenatal education or something like that, so I imagine they are paid, plus venues cost a bit and NCT is a charity so no doubt any left over goes to run it. I enjoyed mine and have so far got a great group of mum-friends and we message all the time 😊[/quote]
The woman who did ours certainly wasn't qualified she'd done some in house training and her day job was in a shop and she was extremely opinionated

I'm getting cross just thinking about it I'm just relieved I got my money back

It really must depend on who's running it but for what they charge they shouldn't make heavily pregnant women meet in cold church halls and sit on a plastic chair they could book a nice room in a hotel if people are now paying over £300 and serve refreshments not instant tea with powdered milk in filthy cups in a grotty hall

I'm outraged they get away with it and that group still runs I see it advertised 🤦🏻‍♀️

@myheartskippedabeat drawing your hospital room ugh how utterly childish and pointless.

I had to go out to the loo when the lady read out ‘a letter from your unborn baby’
I don’t go in for that twee nonsense. The ‘homework’ was to write one back. I didn’t. Because, you know, he was a fetus at the time bless him, and not quite capable.

It was in a room of the Hilton hotel which was a nice venue, but I thought our money might have stretched to dome biscuits and pastries since we were there for six hours at a time…nope, ‘because of covid’. But, ‘welcome to bring your own snacks and drinks’

I think our lady was nice and meant well but just felt a bit infantilised by it all really.

Plus, she kept saying ‘people who are pregnant’. ‘People who give birth’. Would not say ‘women’ for love nor money, despite being in a room of eight women who were pregnant. It annoyed me.

@myheartskippedabeat that must have been quite a while ago as they have been affiliated to a university for a good number of years now; I asked my teacher about it once as I briefly thought about training but don't have the time at the moment.

[quote WheelieBinPrincess]@myheartskippedabeat you got off lightly- ours was £320 [/quote]
OMG - what golden nugget of information did they give you that was worth £320??

Had two babies, never been to an ante natal class, first time round I remember calling a MW who said remember your breathing, counted me through a breath or two and that was about it.

We did it NCT before first baby. It can be good to meet other first-time parents, if this is your main objective. But beware the actual content of the course and prepare yourself for a lot of dogma and opinion-based 'teaching'. Ours was very anti pain relief and tried to suggest that even allowing your baby's heartbeat to be monitored in labour can be a bad idea. There was a separate part of the course that was about breastfeeding which we actually found really useful but be prepared to take the rest of it with a large pinch of salt if you do it.

I had that aswell. Kept referring to the 8 pregnant women in the room as 'birthing people'. It irritated me so much. Not clear how to have a genuine conversation about pregnancy that has a significant impact on women's health without you know saying the word 'woman'. It's not a dirty word. I felt the NCT was a bit twee.