Yes, more ponderings on the state of pregnancy. My offline diary is rather a detail-free abstract zone, so if I am going to record this experience for future reference, then it has to be here; you don’t have to keep reading it, you know.
Having finished our NHS parentcraft classes, yesterday we started the two-day NCT antenatal course. On balance, I would say that you could safely skip the NHS classes and go straight to NCT, although the NHS is free so you might as well do both.
The NHS course consisted of up to 25 couples crammed into a small room, sitting in rows and being lectured at. The NCT course has only eight couples in attendance, and is much, much more interactive. No roleplaying yet, but a lot of groupwork. Mostly we get divided into MUMS and DADS, and set a little exercise which is nominally about brainstorming on to a flipchart, but really just an excuse for Us to giggle about how little our partners know about childbirth, and for Them to complain about having to put up with Us being moany and useless, and not getting enough sex. Each group then puts the right answers on the flipchart (Us: tiredness, anxiety, discomfort; Them: frustration, anxiety, support), and we re-assemble to admire each other’s work.
Fortunately I am no stranger to being the hippiest girl in class, and by the end of the day I remained unnetworked, having raised one eyebrow too many in response to the others advocating Gina Ford and being far more relaxed about formula feeding than I am. Luckily, our extremely personable and competent teacher is also anti-Gina and pro-breastmilk, which makes me feel like the class swot. Again, this is not an unfamiliar sensation.
The personable and competent teacher is a fount of interesting statistics, and tells us that only 20% of couples say that their relationship is improved by the birth of their first baby. As with nappies, breastfeeding, sleeping arrangements, and a million other areas of controversy, I am determined to be in the minority. Pete and I are good communicators, we share burdens well, we know how to have a good time, and we’re committed to Project Baby such that we don’t worry so much about how awful it’s all going to be, but think about ways of enjoying it and making it not awful. We appear to live in a culture where childrearing is seen as more than just a challenge, but as a truly dreadful experience, the effects of which we should seek to minimise as far as possible. Once again, I ask: so what’s the point of having a baby, then?
Meanwhile, Teach has set us some homework. Each couple had to pick a form of pain relief during labour, and present a short piece of feedback about it at the next session. We didn’t speak up soon enough, and got stuck with hypnobirthing, which is good in a way because we know nothing about it, so it will be more interesting than researching entonox or epidurals. Despite what you might think, I’m not a big fan of such apparently new-age tree-hugging alternative therapy nonsense [see oft repeated anecdote about the acupunturist who diagnosed me as having a liver complaint based on me giving my favourite colour as green]. To my surprise, preliminary reading around the subject of hypnobirthing actually makes it seem quite appealing. It’s not all about you are feeling sleepy; it’s more to do with being well-informed, and preparing yourself positively for labour, so that you can let go on every level, and deal with the physical process rather than focusing on an unnecessary fight-or-flight response. This makes sense.
I really like your blog cos I am also a hippie-swot communicator. I recognise so many of the thoughts I had the first time I was pregnant. Things like communication being a big important bit of making everything work once the baby arrives. Just remember to keep talking and then, even if it can be rather awful at times, when it’s not you can talk and laugh and cry (crtying mainly caused by tiredness rather than sadness) about it together. For pain control during labour I recommend positive thinking and entonox (it doesn’t take away the pain but it makes you not care and also the mouthpiece (or whatever you call it) gives you something to focus on and grip really hard. And don’t make up your mind not to take the epidural. I felt I was more relaxed when I kept all options open. I’ll keep coming back here, it is getting really exciting this blog! (I’d direct you to my blog but it’s in Swedish…)
Oh dear. Looks like your classes are another example of local variations of NHS service. So I’m going to speak up in favour of the NHS classes which, for us, were very good. There were about fifteen couples on our course (30 people), so we were split into two groups with a midwife each. Each session generally started out with a little introductory chat from the midwife to introduce the subject matter for that evening (pain relief, labour, what happens when you go home, breastfeeding, etc.) and then we went off into smaller groups (usually three couples) to discuss it all and write on flipcharts. Then we all got back together and discussed everything, much in the way you describe. It was always done with humour and healthy irreverence. It was also realistic – the midwife team were honest about the facilities ("it’s not perfect, but it is what we have – and WE will do our very best and we have the best equipment, even if the building is a bit shabby") and honest about processes, lack of dignity, what might go wrong, etc. One of the mums in our group had been on the local NCT course and said that, whilst it was good, she found it a little too idealistic and mildly patronising – they talked about lighting candles and playing music which, given the reality of the facilities, wasn’t likely to be a realistic possibility. Our midwife team were also more likely to put forward a view like Eva-Lotta’s too – they felt it was better to keep options open but be well-informed about all the choices. They said that the biggest problem was not actually mums who had fixed ideas of what they wanted to do (because it was their view that the mum should make the decisions unless those decisions might put mum or baby at serious risk), but mums who hadn’t turned up for the course, hadn’t read the NHS book and really didn’t have a clue about what was about to happen. It amazed us that any mum might put themselves into that position, but having seen some of the characters on the post-natal ward, I now believe that anything is possible and despair of the future of our society.
Yes, I’ve painted the NHS course quite badly. It was actually very informative, but definitely more of a lecturing environment than the NCT. The big problem was the crowding, and it definitely wasn’t interactive. There was one part where we were split into two groups, to discuss forms of pain relief, but we weren’t given any information beforehand so it was really a myth-swapping session.
It was particularly disheartening to listen to the midwife at the second class, who told us all the things we would have liked to hear from our own midwife – so frustrating to know that the Karen-friendly midwives are out there, but we can’t get our hands on them.
The third session with the health visitor was very sketchy indeed, and I could happily have skipped it – I don’t think I learned anything new that day.
The NCT class hasn’t been at all patronising – I did expect the aromatherapy bias, but in fact the teacher is adamantly not a tree-hugger; just very practical and very knowledgeable, and runs the course extremely well. Like the private scan we had, it seems that round here you have to pay to get a really satisfactory service.
Actually, one problem we had with the NHS classes was that they assume no prior knowledge – whereas we were quite clued-up already. Based on some of the tales we heard from midwives, their approach is quite prudent, as so many mums really have no clue at all.
The NCT in Ireland is the National Car Test, kinda like your MOT. Every time you’ve mentioned it in the past couple of posts I’ve giggled inside, because I am an enormous child.
I’ve completed a 5 session hypnobirthing course – on the recommendation of the most practical Northern lass with baby I know – and I have found it really useful. I hope at the very least it’ll help me through the early stages, even if I need to do something a bit more ‘active’ at my birthing centre. The ‘hypnosis’ is actually a very deep relaxed state, which itself has been very useful.