ABSTRACT
For most women expecting their first baby, the phenomenon of birth is nowadays a process completely outside their experience. Antenatal classes provide information and techniques which can relate expectations to reality; they do not, however, operate in a vacuum. Antenatal classes may structure a woman's expectation of what her husband can do to help; they may encourage her to turn him into a practised helper beforehand; they may even attempt to provide tuition for husbands themselves. Many courses now include a trip round the maternity unit; both the community and hospital classes did this, and the NCT teacher encouraged her students to go round the hospital where they were booked. British preparation for childbirth has been strongly influenced by the obstetrician Grantly Dick Read. He argued that a vicious circle of fear-tension-pain made labour and delivery more difficult than they need be, and attempted to break it in his own clinical practice by freeing women from the fear of childbirth.
