Why should I continue to contribute/be a member of the NCT after my child turns two?

Did you have your baby’s dad with you at any antenatal appointments? Did you have your own set of notes to keep and read during pregnancy? Did you get antenatal classes from the NHS? Were you able to have something to eat or drink while you were in labour? Did you have your babies dad with you when you gave birth? Were you allowed to keep your baby with you after birth or was your baby taken to a nursery – did you hold you baby before s/he was washed – or was your baby weighed washed and dressed then given to you to hold? Did you have your public hair shaved – were you given an enema – did you lie on your back with your legs in stirrups or were you able to get up and walk around – did you have your baby at home – did you get support to breastfeed – is your babys weight being compared on a breastfeeding baby chart – did you write a birth plan – was it respected – did you know that you could refer yourself to a midwife and did not see a GP or consultant unless you wanted to. Did you have a water birth or an en-suite toilet and shower. Did you have a birth couch rather than a medical bed in your room – have you had maternity leave – did you have somewhere that you could go to meet other mums after birth – were you able to find information on the transition to parenthood – did you know that your baby does not need solid food until s/he is about 6 months old – did you get healthy start money – or a maternity grant – if you were in prison for your birth were you shackled to a male prison officer during your birth – if you had a prem baby were you supported and informed?

I could go on – but if you benefited form any of these things then the NCT made a difference for you – that means someone some where – who you don’t know and never will know supported this charity – paid a membership fee and possibly volunteered and fundraised in order that we could bring about these changes – someone paid my salary and those of the policy team at the NCT UKO office –someone paid the expenses of volunteers for us to sit in endless meetings and push and run conferences and talk to the media and ministers and run surveys and write reports – until finally the NCT was asked to draft the England maternity
policy – and contribute to the Scottish and Welsh ones . (NI is just getting started and we are involved)

Now we are not done – about one third of all women remember their birth as traumatic ( mainly because they were left unsupported of had a lot of interventions) – suicide is the biggest cause of death in women in the year post birth – in the year post birth a high number of relationships break up – postnatal depression is common – many women who wanted to breast feed find they do not get the support they need to do it – babies lose their lives in neonatal intensive units from lack of donor milk from human milk banks ( formula feeding prem babies increases the risk of necrotising eneterocolitis – donor milk or own mothers milk is the best prevention). Something like 10 or 15% of all caesarean sections could have been prevented by better care in labour – more than a quarter of all women are left alone during labour or birth or just afterwards and were frightened.

So if you keep paying your membership fee – you will get nothing (except the support of the friends you have made and the positive spin off from the benefits you have already had) – but what we will do is take your money and put it to work to make a difference for the next generation of mothers and fathers - one day that money will have gone round in a circle and will make a difference for your own child when he or she becomes a parent.

I can’t offer you anything to stay a member – but for the sake of parents of the future I hope you do.

Belinda.

CEO NCT