Writings by me

The National Childbirth Trust (NCT) is the national charity for pregnancy, birth and early parenthood and support over 70,000 expectant and new parents every year. They provide both antenatal and postnatal support in the form of classes, groups and online advice as well as campaigning on issues that are important to parents.

Talking amongst friends it’s clear that the NCT does wonders for connecting people. Many of them speak warmly of the friendships they made through the NCT and have maintained really close relationships with those friends.

However, I recently came across an article asking whether NCT classes cause anxiety. Having briefly scanned through the website before, this headline didn’t surprise me. As the National Childbirth Trust, you’d expect to see a wide array of parenting experience reflected back at you. Taking a casual look at the website and the following starts to grate.

Firstly, that if you don’t fall into the category of (mostly) white, middle-class women who enjoy yoga and intend to breastfeed, I can see why the NCT might not feel necessarily inclusive to you. From the prices of classes (an antenatal course comes in at £239), recommendations for doulas, to a heavy focus on breastfeeding, if you’re anything but the mother above, I can see why you’d switch off or feel extremely anxious. Instead of feeling supported and welcomed regardless of difference, looking at the website, I felt the exact opposite. Even though I am white, relatively privileged and intended to breastfeed (yoga came later…), I still couldn’t relate. 

Carrying on with breastfeeding, I’m so glad I didn’t look at the website extensively before I had the boys. There is a lack of a realistic look at how hard breastfeeding really is and a dearth of bottle-feeding help or pictures of bottle-fed babies cooing with satisfaction. I already believed that breastfeeding would come naturally and was so excited by it.  I was entirely unprepared for the shitstorm of pumping/feeding/timetables/lack of sleep and then self-loathing and inadequacy when it just did not work and giving it up was devastating.

But it was necessary, the fact of which is mysteriously absent from a lot of NCT content, despite it being the experience of many mothers I came across after my experience.

Though they also offer post-natal courses, the mums in the article are quoted saying they are not truly helpful or relevant to the nitty-gritty realities of parenting newborns, especially regarding the personal health of the mother. Given the prevalence and growing awareness of PND and its impact, NCT could be a leading voice and using their position as experts and professionals to really support women and their mental health during this time.

As the number one parenting charity for parents in the UK, NCT has a responsibility to ensure it is representative of the whole of the UK and the choices which all parents make, regardless of what those choices are.

When we’re talking about becoming a parent, it is impossible to prescribe the perfect experience. In my opinion, NCT needs to do more to include all the nuances of parenting. Whether it’s actually possible for one childbirth charity to do that is another story altogether; but for now, with the influence and position they have, it’s important they are a vehicle for support, not an added source of anxiety and stress for new parents.