Released on: 04 May 2016

NCT today celebrates its 60th anniversary by looking back at its key achievements and forward to its future direction.

It all started on 4th May 1956 with an advert in The Times calling for women to join an association to support them through childbirth¹. This group aimed to provide antenatal education so women would feel better prepared for birth and parenthood.

Today NCT is a charity for both women and men that aims to support parents through the First 1,000 Days of parenthood.² It not only provides antenatal and postnatal courses but also information through its website and helpline, and practical support through its 300 local volunteer-led branches.³

Seána Talbot, NCT President, said: “NCT was created in 1956 with the aim that all new and expectant parents should feel supported, informed and confident and this remains at the heart of what we do today.

“We are extremely grateful to our volunteers and practitioners from all corners of the UK for their commitment and dedication over the years to supporting new mothers and fathers. We’re proud of our achievements but we’re also looking to the future, determined to expand our reach to support even more parents as we move forward.”

Some of NCT’s achievements include:
• Helping parents to give birth confidently. NCT introduced the first antenatal classes in the UK in 1959. Last year, the charity’s courses helped prepare over 100,000 new parents for birth and parenthood.

• Bringing partners into the delivery room. Today it’s the norm for women to have their partner with them during labour but for previous generations the philosophy was that fathers had no place at the birth. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that it became widely accepted largely thanks to NCT’s campaigning.

• Breastfeeding in public places. NCT had a strong influence on The Equality Act 2010, which gives women the right to breastfeed in public places without being discriminated against.

• Improving maternity services. NCT has been involved with national reviews of maternity services since the 1990s, represented users on the recent English and Scottish National Maternity Reviews and its volunteers work on multiple local committees.

• Working with socially disadvantaged groups. NCT has developed specialist support services for pregnant refugee and asylum seeking women, and also runs antenatal sessions for women in prison.

• Raising awareness and improving services for perinatal mental health. Last year, NCT launched its #BeyondBabyBlues campaign, which called for improved mental health support for parents. In January, the Prime Minister announced an additional £290 million for mental health services for new and expectant mothers. NCT has recently launched a Department of Health funded peer support project4 and also campaigns to raise awareness of men’s perinatal mental health.

¹ NCT was founded on 4th May 1956 by Prunella Briance who wanted to fundamentally change how women were treated during childbirth after a ‘horribly mismanaged’ birth. Prunella put an advert in The Times newspaper calling for women to join an association based on the belief that they should be supported and empowered during pregnancy and birth.

² The First 1,000 Days of being a parent, starting with pregnancy through to a child’s second birthday, are now accepted to be the most significant in a child’s development.

³ NCT currently has over 100,000 members across the UK and Channel Islands. Each NCT branch is run by a team of volunteers who connect parents through local events and activities, such as Bumps & Babies groups. These volunteers helped raise over £1.5 million last year to fund a range of projects and initiatives to benefit parents including local breastfeeding peer support and services for women suffering from postnatal depression.

4 The innovative project will work to develop a safe, effective and sustainable model of perinatal mental health peer support

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