The National Childbirth Trust is too middle class and must do more to attract to parents from disadvantage backgrounds, its first ever male chief executive has said.
The NCT offers extensive antenatal and breastfeeding services, but Nick Wilkie said he was “astonished” to find out that 10 per cent of its 114,000 members come from the wealthy south-west London suburbs of Wimbledon, Dulwich and Clapham.
With classes costing £300 a course, the NCT’s services are currently inaccessible for many parents and parents-to-be.
“We are disproportionately middle class,” Mr Wilkie told a newspaper. “We work all over the country and have projects in Styal prison [a women’s prison in Cheshire] and with refugees and asylum-seekers and new projects in some of the poorest parts of the country. But the 10 per cent statistic is a challenge.
“I want to expand our reach so more parents can get the benefit of our classes.”
The NCT was established in 1956 to promote natural childbirth.
