The NCT - An Appreciation

Nothing prepares you for childbirth – and yet, paradoxically, how we prepare.  Over the last few months I have given much thought to how women in nature must have experienced labour.  Something surprisingly different from their daily experience certainly but was there an ability to trust in the body’s natural processes that has long been lost?  As Alexander Pope warned a little learning is a dangerous thing and there must be few women left in the world giving birth without at least some awareness of what will happen to them and the risks attendant upon giving birth.

As a London cyclist I am very interested in the question of risk perception: a risk that causes me no little or no concern I know deters thousands.  Similarly we all know people for whom a fear of flying either makes it an impossible or a genuinely traumatic experience.  Every one of us has a unique response to risk and the same is true for our experience of pain.  One person’s slight discomfort is another’s unendurable torment.

And so to NCT training.  The National Childbirth Trust was founded in 1956 as the Natural Childbirth Trust changing its name at the start of the 1960s.  The vast majority of parents have their children with either no training at all or by attending the sessions offered by their local hospital but for the curious/anxious/diligent rest there is the NCT.  Plainly any experience of NCT will be dictated by the teacher, fellow parents and one’s own expectations and anxiety about the whole undertaking.

Something I have rapidly learnt as a birth partner (father in waiting) is that there is no limit to how interested and useful one can be but also that there is no place for judgement as far as labour is concerned.  I would no more suggest to my wife what her approach to pain relief should be than I would tell her how to apply her makeup.

That isn’t to say that I haven’t found NCT fascinating and in its own bizarre way extremely enjoyable.  Weekly 2.5 hour sessions sitting in a circle with 8 mums 8 bumps and 8 dads in varying stages of apprehension and involvement has been a sociological insight well worth the time and expense even without the practical advice imparted.

An unintended highlight came at the start of one evening  session when a bloke in his 50s wearing sunglasses wandered uncertainly in prompting the teacher quickly to whisper to him ‘Sorry mate, AA is downstairs this week’.  He wandered out with an amiable ‘Didn’t look like my lot’.  The teacher said things could get much more confused when there was a clash with Weight Watchers.

Any anxiety that we dads had about our purpose in all of this was neatly encapsulated in an account of a previous breastfeeding session when one of the fathers emailed the teacher in advance asking if the other mothers would definitely be alright with him attending, when she asked why he suggested they might be unhappy with him seeing their breasts.  For the uninitiated it is worth knowing that no nudity is required on the NCT.

Of course the real purpose of NCT is to plug you into a supply of local expectants and my wife has dutifully signed up for the obligatory Whatsapp group.  Part of me marvels gratefully that so great an institution should have grown up so quickly but another part wonders whether it is a shame that women’s wisdom concerning childbirth has become so formalised.  If you haven’t yet, and if you still can, ask your own parents what their experience of childbirth was.  I find that demystification, like charity, begins at home.

Baby Buying for Baby Bearing

A favourite theme for newspapers is the eye watering cost of having children with the average cost of raising a child from birth to 21 now apparently £230,000, significantly less than the cost of this parking space in London. Somebody obviously needs to tell the Telegraph that the age of majority reduced to 18 some time ago. 

The cost of living is now so exorbitant here that it seems to be having a significant chilling effect on the childbirth rate. If you can’t afford a roof over your own head you are certainly not going to risk losing one over your baby’s. That being said deciding to have a baby following a literal cost/benefit analysis seems to be a sad basis for determining whether to bring a life into the world. 

I knew it was going to be expensive. I know it will be expensive. However none of my planning could have prepared me for the mania induced by the John Lewis baby department or the awesome power of an expectant mother’s nesting instinct. On a recent visit (one of many) I was trying to make eye contact with some of the other first time fathers but all seemed locked in survival mode behind 1,000 yard stares. As I passed one who appeared to have some awareness of the outside world I muttered a rueful ‘Having fun?’ as we passed. He clearly didn’t dare answer leaving it to my wife to toss an admonitory ‘I heard that!’ over her shoulder. 

In fairness to my wife she acceded with alacrity to my suggestion that before splurging we beg and borrow if perhaps not steal. And I have to credit my friends far and wide for their munificence; although when you are in the midst of ante-natal anxiety it is very hard to imagine a day will soon come when being relieved of this paraphernalia will be its own godsend. 

Of the myriad anxieties that beset prospective and new parents the desire to insulate your child’s childhood from the cares and cruelty of the adult world must be the most natural. However for me its nearest rival, the thing that most spurs me to single-handedly dig a moat and construct a spiked palisade, is holding off the dismal day when my child becomes a consumer. 

Which leads seamlessly to the topic of prams. Here I have to disclose my hypocritical underpinning. Mine was a childhood of the Silver Cross perambulator and Nannies' Lawn in Hyde Park. And we are talking 1980 not 1930. I even, briefly, had a Dutch nanny who played the harp outside my bedroom door when I was put to bed: which I realise instantly disqualifies me from having any valid opinion on parenting ever. Even making allowance for all that I am staggered at the cost of prams. 

This BMW tie-in for petrol prats, this overpriced outrage for the fashioninnies and, of course, the Bugaboo, that being your exclamation when you see what buying one does to your bank balance. I don’t know about you but if I’m going to pay upwards of a grand for my baby’s ‘transportation system’ I’m expecting some kind of sedan chair illustrated with Aesop’s Fables wielded by oiled Olympians.

I'm no supporter of infant indoctrination but an early general lesson for my baby will be form follows function and that anyone who spends £3,400 on an Aston Martin buggy is bonkers.