The strife-torn National Childbirth Trust’s stance on birth and breastfeeding has been rigid and divisive
In a dramatic public letter to all National Childbirth Trust (NCT) stakeholders – it finishes, “please keep on keeping on, if you can” – its president Seána Talbot has resigned. There is clearly a lot of personal chagrin (Talbot talks of coercion, bullying, a toxic culture, mistrust between staff and volunteers) which would be unfair to adjudicate from a distance. She laments the organisation losing members – a drop of 55% since 2016 – although doesn’t mention that since 2015 it has not been obligatory to become a member in order to take the prenatal classes.
However, competitors have sprung up in the prenatal business, organisations parents-to-be prefer because they’re less expensive and less doctrinaire: in many ways, the surprising thing is that the NCT dominance lasted so long, given that for years the trust has been known for its fierce views on the “medicalisation” of childbirth. Women came away with the idea that epidurals were for wimps, caesarean sections meant you had failed, and the Syntocinon injection was only for the kind of weakling who couldn’t eject a placenta with the power of her mind. To be fair, 60 years ago, this started as the “natural” not “national” childbirth trust.
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2IBkuOa
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