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| NCT Antenatal Classes Review |
This was childbirth as if the Kray twins had been running it. As far as these midwives were concerned, bringing a defenseless baby into the world was just a part of their job. Terrorizing parents was the fun bit.
What a contrast to the antenatal classes organized by the National Childbirth Trust. These were in someone's house and involved sundry cups of herbal tea and chocolate biscuits. We had to take off our shoes and sit on bean bags. Where was the giant spliff? Did Jimi Hendrix have a new album out? A mere twelve of us were at this one, which wiped out Tuesday evenings for only eight weeks. This week, dilation of the cervix.
Next week, Braxton-Hicks contractions. It was a grueling course, chocolate HobNobs notwithstanding. But by the end of it we knew more about childbirth than we bad thought possible, and far more than many of us had wanted to know. Our host and teacher was a tiny self-effacing woman called Val, who had no particular qualifications as far as we knew, other than having had loads of kids. We could hear them running around in the kitchen and upstairs and in and out of the house (either that or she had a hell of a problem with rats). Val's was the voice of experience. She had been there. She knew what it was like.
We respected what she had to say. Also, for the class she had knitted several female body parts, which the men liked to play with. It was the nearest some of us would come to sex for a very long time.
The NCT is a registered charity which was founded in 1957 to help parents and parents-to-be, and now helps around 300,000 of them a year, through antenatal classes, helplines, social events and a suitably well-stocked website. Its information, it says, is based on objective research evidence, and it would disavow any allegations of bias in favor of natural childbirth. Its aim is purely to give people the facts. Even so, you won't usually find NCT antenatal teachers suggesting you have a Caesarean just for the fun of it. Val was an unabashed fan of natural childbirth.
This is an unusually appealing ideology, or religion, or whatever you want to call it. As parents-to-be, we had passed the first months of the pregnancy in a haze of suppressed terror. Now, we were ripe for ideological reprogramming. All we craved was a little certainty. A skilful antenatal class teacher could supply this, as well as gallons of nettle tea. Val was just what we needed. Her unusually hairy armpits positively reeked of common sense.
The theory and practice of natural childbirth are based around the belief that, for most women, childbirth is a safe and simple process that doctors and their machines have overcomplicated. It was pioneered in the 1970s by the French obstetrician Michel Odent, when what he called 'industrialized obstetrics' had become the norm. Forget forceps and drugs, said Odent. Forget bleeping machines in cruelly overlit, soulless delivery rooms. At his own birth centre outside Paris, Odent would encourage mothers to give birth in darkened rooms, maybe with a few candies burning, with tapes of their favorite music playing, possibly even whalesong if the local record shops hadn't run out. To find out more, you can check out NCT Antenatal Classes Review.