Released on: 08 August 2014

Responding to Richard Godwin's article about his experience of antenatal courses, NCT CEO, Belinda Phipps said:

We’re disappointed that Richard Godwin doesn’t have a completely positive view of his antenatal class (7/8/14) and we’ll take on board his comments regarding knitted vaginas and spelling mistakes.

Richard’s points don’t correspond to the response we get from the majority of expectant mums and dads. Nine out of ten of the 13,000 parents who attended our courses in the last nine months rated them as good or excellent. We also aim to ensure that all our practitioners comply with the standards we set and courses are regularly observed.

One of his criticisms is that our classes are too expensive. We are aware that not all parents can afford or want to pay, so we provide free classes which are commissioned by the NHS, as well as running courses at discounted rates. We’ve also started to offer shorter, more affordable classes, called Essentials, which start from £70.

We’re working hard to try to help all new parents in the UK, whatever their background or income.

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