Nct classes: Are they worthwhile?

[Jzee]

Baby 1 is due in July and I've enrolled for dh and I to attend nct childbirth classes. I'm feeling a little apprehensive as the course involves groupwork and discussions and I'm not too keen on this sort of thing. Can anyone elaborate on what I should expect and did you find the course valuable?

Bugsy your message re going into labour has reminded me: when our NCT antenatal group went to the local maternity hospital one evening for a visit, I could feel things "start to happen" and was back in there for real the next day! dd was 1 week early.

Lindy, you mention midwives and a hospital visit - they sound like NHS classes rather than the NCT ones?

Anyway, I do have friends who did NCT classes and had a "knit your own placenta" teacher so it is a bit of pot luck with who you get/meet. They moved to Australia so have successfully shaken off anyone they met at the classes - a bit drastic but maybe you could just pretend, Lindy?

I went to NCT classes with my first son (and refresher with the second) 13 years ago - we had a great class and still meet up regularly all these years on! We are now all coping with teenagers - and the need to share experiences is just as great as it was when they were all babies!
I think the best thing about classes was that it covered far more than the NHS ones and as everything that could go wrong went wrong in my first labour I was alot more knowledgable about what was going on and so it was all less frightening - and also because dh had been at the classes with me (and not just the one class offered to partners by the NHS) he was able to able to make informed decisions when I was far too gone to care.