Live and online antenatal courses - questions and answers

Your NCT Antenatal antenatal course will grow your knowledge, your confidence and your network to fully prepare you for labour, birth and the early days with your new baby. 

Your antenatal course sessions will be live and interactive online using Zoom and WhatsApp. and now we're able to bring you together as a group in-person for your postnatal reunion session, after the birth of your baby. Plus we're giving you the information and support to help your group to meet up socially in-person alongside you online sessions - download it here.

NCT online antenatal course sessions are designed to be fun, engaging and interactive you’ll receive exactly the same in-depth, impartial information, invaluable skills and support from your friendly expert NCT course leader, as you would on an in-person course.  The only difference is that, instead of meeting in-person, you’ll be meeting and interacting online using Zoom for your antenatal course sessions. 

• You’ll be live, online and face-to-face in every session - from first introductions, interactive presentations, lively discussions through quizzes, practical skills sessions to tea break chats, reunion reflections and beyond – you’ll meet, learn and bond with other local parents having babies at the same time as you to make vital connections and life-long friends in your community.

• You’ll cover all aspects of labour, birth and caring for your new baby, catering to both your emotional wellbeing and the practical side of things, from nappy changing, washing, clothing, crying to safe sleeping and feeding. You’ll also focus on what’s happening on the ground with your local maternity and community health services.

• Every session will be well-paced and structured, with any longer sessions broken up into manageable chunks, with well-timed breaks. Sessions will be packed with practical skills, relaxation exercises, presentations, group and pair work and Q&A’s to keep you feeling engaged, supported and connected as you learn. 

• We’re also giving you access to NCT Parent Hub, a digital resource of objective, trusted information and expert support. This will complement what you learn on your antenatal course and support your journey into parenthood. 

• Now, more than ever, we want you to feel confident and empowered about becoming a parent. With health and social services scaled-back and other community support unavailable, your expert course leader will use session time to address your specific questions and concerns, and in addition your interactive chat groups (e.g. WhatsApp) will give further opportunities for you to ask questions. 

Find out about the topics and information your NCT live and online antenatal course will cover.

Benefits of an online antenatal course:

An online course is fully inclusive for all parents, and so all pregnant mums and partners can attend as there is no additional risk of Covid-19 transmission to you, your partner, your baby, the NCT course leader or any of the other parents attending. Also, since we’ve been delivering them since the middle of March 2020, we’ve noticed a number of specific benefits as well.  Watch this video with Val Willcox, expert antenatal teacher and Head of NCT Practice, to understand why parents are finding our online courses an amazing experience:

Find out more about our live, online NCT Antenatal course.

With online NCT Antenatal course sessions we guarantee you’ll receive:

• Exactly the same number of antenatal course hours online, live and face-to-face with your highly-skilled course leader and local group of parents to physically and emotionally prepare you for the arrival of your new baby and life as a parent.  

• The fullest live and interactive course experience possible*, packed with local insight, evidence-based information, practical skills, and expert support. The only difference is that instead of meeting in-person you’ll be meeting and interacting online using Zoom.

• In-person group meet-ups: we're giving you the support and information to help you get together in-person as safely as possible with your antenatal course group during your course, outside of your online antenatal course sessions, and after your baby is born - download it here.

Since March 2020 over 100,000 parents have attended their antenatal course online, with 90% rating them good or excellent. You can be confident your online NCT Antenatal course sessions will physically and emotionally prepare you for the arrival of your new baby and life as a parent. You’ll make new friends and grow your support network whilst learning everything you need to know about pregnancy, birth and caring for your new baby.

The below graphic outlines the common features of NCT Antenatal course both online and in-person showing how similar they are - the only difference being the Zoom delivery of the sessions.

We’ve heard from lots of parents-to-be who felt unsure about attending their antenatal course sessions online but found the experience really positive – here’s some real parent testimonials about our online course sessions: 

“You would have thought the course had been done over Zoom for years as the leader was so confident using it and the additional resources shared were spot on. Highly recommend.”

“When our NCT course moved to zoom my husband and I were a little disappointed especially as a key reason to joining the course was to connect with other local parents. However, the course instructor made it feel very personal and engaging. The regular use of breakout rooms made it easy to chat to other parents and as a group we have quickly established our own WhatsApp chats and have been able to meet in person in small groups… Overall a fantastic experience and one I would recommend wholeheartedly.”

“Our NCT course was amazing. Our course leader … was an amazing source of knowledge and comfort. I left the course feeling like a better informed, more confident birth partner. And even over zoom it was amazing to connect with other parents in the local area. I look forward to meeting everyone in person at some point!”

With Covid-19 in our society, we will always make informed decisions about how we run our antenatal courses which protect you, your babies and our NCT course leaders. We make our decisions, as the UK’s largest parenting charity and the leader in the field of antenatal education, with full consideration of current NHS and national Government guidelines, in close consultation with our colleagues at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and with reference to the most reliable research findings and data regarding pregnancy and Covid-19.  

As an organisation whose mission it is to support all parents to have the most positive experiences of pregnancy, birth and the early days, we want to act promptly and with transparency.  We make our decisions about courses moving online as early as practically possible as well as providing as much useful information as we can to explain the reasons for the move.

How parents rate NCT Antenatal online:

The Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t stopped parents-to-be preparing for the arrival of their baby and new lives as parents with NCT.  Since March 2020 over 84,000 parents have attended their antenatal course online with us and the feedback is excellent - currently**:

8 out of 10 parents say they will keep in touch with the parents they met on their NCT Antenatal course.

9 out of 10 of parents…
- rate the online delivery of their NCT Antenatal course good or excellent
- rate their NCT Antenatal course experience good or excellent
- say their NCT Antenatal course helped them prepare for feeding their baby
- say they came away from their NCT Antenatal course with realistic expectations

and 10 out of 10 parents say their NCT Antenatal course increased their knowledge of labour and birth, caring for and feeding their new baby and becoming a parent.

*Information on the Covid-19 vaccine and pregnancy - RCOG: Click here

**Tried, tested and refined for 12 months by our expert course leaders, to bring you the best and most comprehensive antenatal course on the market, the above statistics come from parents attending online NCT Antenatal courses that started in January 2021.

Zoom sessions - content and how you’ll learn

Our online NCT Antenatal courses cover exactly the same topics (see What you’ll learn) and offer exactly the same types of learning an our in-person courses. Your course leader will:

•    plan the content and pace each of your course sessions using a variety of learning activities, including presentations, practical skills sessions, relaxation exercises, group and pair work and question and answer sessions to make your learning interactive and keep you feeling engaged.

•    design each session with the specific needs of your group in mind, making sure the pace and mix of learning activities maximises learning your outcomes and delivers built-in opportunities for you to bond with the other parents in your group to help ensure you form friendships and mutual support networks.
 

Session times and dates:

In an in-person course all your sessions take place in a venue at set and scheduled times with your group and your course leader.  With your online NCT Antenatal courses you should see no change to your session times and dates or start and end times* in the details you receive.

*the only circumstances in which this may differ is if you have moved or been transferred to a different course which has different sessions – please contact your course organiser or our enquiries team on enquiries@nct.org.uk / tel: 0300 330 0700

Session lengths:

Course sessions delivered by Zoom will last no more than 90 to 120 minutes in duration without a scheduled break, for the following reasons:

•    Having a maximum Zoom session length of 2 hours aligns with the advice and best practice from our partners in online education across the higher education and corporate training sectors.  It is also backed up by feedback from parents-to-be who’ve attended our online courses since March 2020.  This has provided excellent insights into what expectant parents feel is an ideal session length is on Zoom, and also how many sessions work well in a longer day of teaching, in terms of maximising comfort and concentration to ensure the best course experience possible. 

•    Keeping the session lengths to 2 hours or less, before having a break, should help you to best process, digest and retain the information and skills you’ve learned whilst minimising feelings of eye tiredness and zoom fatigue experienced from engaging on a screen for too long.

Session breaks:

•    Your course leader will build in regular breaks, timed to help you maintain concentration, keep you comfortable and minimise fatigue during sessions, especially those which last longer than a few hours.

We promise you won’t miss out with an online NCT antenatal course:

This pandemic hasn’t stopped parents-to-be meeting, learning together and building life-long friendships – it’s just happening online. You won’t miss out. With an online NCT Antenatal course we guarantee you’ll receive:

•    The same supportive, interactive course experience, packed with local insight, evidence-based information and practical skills.

•    Exactly the same number of hours of learning and support, live and face-to-face with your course leader and local group of parents. The only difference is that instead of meeting in-person you’ll be meeting and interacting online using Zoom and WhatsApp.

Since March 2020 over 100,000 parents have attended their antenatal course online, with 90% rating them good or excellent. You can be confident your online NCT Antenatal course will physically and emotionally prepare you for the arrival of your new baby and life as a parent. You’ll make new friends and grow your support network whilst learning everything you need to know about pregnancy, birth and caring for your new baby.  

Here’s what some parents whose courses changed from in-person to online have said about their experiences:

“You would have thought the course had been done over Zoom for years as the leader was so confident using it and the additional resources shared were spot on.  Highly recommend.”  Helen

“When our NCT course moved to zoom my husband and I were a little disappointed especially as a key reason to joining the course was to connect with other local parents.   However, the course instructor made it feel very personal and engaging.  The regular use of breakout rooms made it easy to chat to other parents and as a group we have quickly established our own WhatsApp chats and have been able to meet in person in small groups… Overall a fantastic experience and one I would recommend wholeheartedly.”  Rose

“Our NCT course was amazing. Our course leader … was an amazing source of knowledge and comfort. I left the course feeling like a better informed, more confident birth partner. And even over zoom it was amazing to connect with other parents in the local area. I look forward to meeting everyone in person at some point!”  Stephen

We believe that currently online antenatal sessions give you the fullest, best quality experience available. They are packed with social and interactive opportunities for you to make and grow friendships with the other parents in the group. We use the benefits of you being in your home spaces and the technology of Zoom breakout rooms to do all the engaging and interactive group activities that mix different individuals and groups together to help you learn and bond. There’s also lots of built-in social time - face to face discussions, refreshments and lunch breaks together that wouldn’t currently be possible if we held sessions indoor in a Covid-secure way. 

The Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t stopped parents-to-be preparing for the arrival of their baby and new lives as parents with NCT.  Since March 2020 over 78,000 parents have attended their antenatal course online with us and the feedback is excellent - currently*:

8 out of 10 parents say they will keep in touch with the parents they met on their NCT Antenatal course.

9 out of 10 of parents…
- rate the online delivery of their NCT Antenatal course good or excellent
- rate their NCT Antenatal course experience good or excellent
- say their NCT Antenatal course helped them prepare for feeding their baby
- say they came away from their NCT Antenatal course with realistic expectations

and 10 out of 10 parents say their NCT Antenatal course increased their knowledge of labour and birth, caring for and feeding their new baby and becoming a parent.

**Tried, tested and refined for 12 months by our expert course leaders, to bring you the best and most comprehensive antenatal course on the market, the above statistics come from parents attending online NCT Antenatal courses that started in January 2021.