Letter from health visitor in magazine.

[leanoracat]

This is from a letter from a health visitor to the letters page of a supermarket magazine. '...health visitors provide a universal service to all families with children under five. They offer research-based, up-to-date advice that is clear and consistent, and they are available for contact no matter how small the query.'
Discuss.

[cleaninglady]

ha! my HV didnt know about aptamil formula and had never heard of Dr Brown bottles when i had my ds 21 months ago!!
i think she learnt more from me over 6 months than her training gave !
that was just that particular HV though - the one previous was quite good actually.

[northerndad2006]

What is aptamil and Dr Brown? Should she/he know about such things?

[cleaninglady]

well aptamil is formula milk - apparently a lighter milk so easier to digest and can possibly help with wind! and dr brown bottles are again "apparently" helpful for windy babies or colic !! if HV "offer research-based, up to date advice" then i would hope they would know about different types of formula's and bottles really but maybe its all too much to keep up with sometimes!

[SenoraPostrophe]

who says that, cleaninglady - the aptimil sales people?

dd used to have it and it gave her wind, so the hv who didn't "know" about it was probably right.

[cleaninglady]

thats why i said apparently! I wasn't saying it actually worked I was just trying it and it seemed to improve things for my ds but she hadnt even heard of the brand which i was suprised at - maybe they just stick to the sma and cow and gate stuff- better the devil you know and all that!

[Beauregard]

Available for contact no matter how small!
My arsehole
Every time i have ever phoned they aren't there so i leave a message and they never call back.

[Medulla]

That's interesting because my first HV (who was fab) told me aptamil was much higher in fat than other formulas and so harder to digest!!! Who to believe. I thought the role of the HV was from birth to grave and not just for the under 5's - who knows!!

[cleaninglady]

Medulla - maybe thats why i had a ds disguised as a beach ball !! (large baby although not nowadays) whats good and bad for children changes almost daily so maybe they dont actually bother to keep that upto date with things anyway! mine is very hard to get hold off also.

[Chandra]

up-to-date advice....please.... clear and consistent.... my ...!

Medulla, at least yours provided some advice about formulas (though wrongly... no formula is harder to diggest, it depends on the particular characteristics of the child too, Aptamil was the only formula DS could diggest properly -malabsorption problems for others). Mine just said "all formulas are the same and nutritionally correct" yeah... right!

[northerndad2006]

Won't they all cause wind due to being fed from a bottle? I've seen special wind-reducing teats, but I expect they don't eliminate the problem.
Unless they actually have some evidence to show that one is better than another, provided they are all 'nutritionally complete' (and which firm would think 'hmm, let's leave out x,y,z and see what happens'?) you might as well use whatever suits your DS/D if you're not going for breastfeeding (which does have a good evidence base for its health benefits).

[Chandra]

Probably instead of just saying breast is best they could possibly provide good advice in how to breastfeed.

I asked in a maternity unit how many mums opted for BF and was told that 99.5% so, if there are so many people around doing bottle feeding it may be that what women need is not just to be told to breastfeed but to get good,research based and up to date advice on on how to do it?... That was some advice that my HV couldn't provide.

[cleaninglady]

would agree that wind a lot more likely in bottle fed babies although the different formula's and the digestability (is that a real word?!) is where the consistency in information from HV just doesnt happen as we can see from just a few postings here! I was told SMA was the hardest to digest and that the Dr Brown bottles were highly effective at elimanating wind and colic due to the vacuum valve in the bottle and it did work for me but i know it hasnt for others - maybe its just the baby and not the product!

[northerndad2006]

What is colic, anyway? I do know what it is, but colicky pain means intermittent abdominal cramps. Colicky babies show no sign of abdominal pain, so the name probably reflects some theory about why babies get grizzly. My DW tells me that in some cultures where the babies are carried around all day, they don't have a word for colic, as they don't recognise it. So, frankly, I'm not aware of any reason to think that any feeding device / food would help to reduce colic.

[Nemo1977]

my hv is generally very good although did not seem to know a lot about reflux formulas available.

[CanIBeFrank]

There's not any proper research been done into formula though, it's all anecdotal.

And if you were using Dr Brown's bottles, that was probably what helped with the wind, not the formula.

HVs offer research-based up-to-date advice that is clear and consistent?

That has to be one of the funniest things I've read on here.

[BadHair]

I've had 3 HVs and they have all been brilliant. Their information has not always been 100% spot on, but they have been extremely supportive and on the whole helped me to make decisions rather than just told me what to do. If ever I've found out information that is different to that they gave me, I've passed it on and they've thanked me.

I know other people have had HVs from Hell, but I can honestly say that mine have been great. And mine have certainly been there for me for all queries - one answered her mobile to me at 11pm when ds1 fell out of his cot.

[Chandra]

Northerndad.... I come from a country where a good segment of the population carries their children around...and contrary to some more eco-organical beliefs, children carried around have colics as any other young baby and yes, they cry.

After sometime they stop crying, not because they enjoy being carried around but because they get used to be ignored, they can not even move considering how tight they are swadled. For their mums, carrying the child around is a necesity, many of them are not properly employed (contracted) and they don't enjoy the luxury of a maternity leave, forget about being able to pay for child care.

[cleaninglady]

Can I add that there are reasons that some products can help reduce wind and colic and some are substantiated as well. Think we went of the thread a bit but I definately know Dr Brown bottles reduced the wind symptoms in my DS which is a relief as not all of us are lucky enough to be successful at breastfeeding even if we want to do it in the first place! Totally agree with prev post re carrying babies around but am surprised at a previous comment about colicky babies not showing signs of adominal pain - the griping and pulling up of legs (bending at knees) are signs of colicky pain aren't they?!

apologies for rant - having had one colicky baby its a bit of a sore subject

[iamapieceofcheesecake]

My health visitor was absolutly brilliant. She always called me back and was there to advise me whenever I needed her. She was the only person I trusted to give me advise on my ds, and so I was gutted when I had to change doctors which meant giving up my health visitor (so I delayed it for 6 months, hee hee).
Nowadays though, i tend to just use MNet

[Pierre]

Oh Goody. Health Visitor bashing again. Lets tar them all with the same brush, shall we? What fun.

Grrrrr.

[LeahE]

Hmm, Pierre -- since the OP there have been

4 posters saying "my HV was bad" / they don't "offer research-based, up-to-date advice that is clear and consistent, and they are available for contact no matter how small the query"

4 posters saying "my HV was good"

1 poster saying (v sensibly in my view) that you can't generalise

(plus 2 who have just been discussing formula, colic, bottles etc.)

So I don't think this thread counts as "Health Visitor bashing" or "tarring them all with the same brush". At least not yet. It's all been almost spookily even-handed so far.

[Pierre]

Yes - I was very slow on uptake (phone rang when I was writing the post) - I was referring to the lack of imagination of OP

[WellKnownMemorablePeachyClair]

I have had 3 excellent ones, one invisible one, and one worse than useless evil cow of an HV.

It varies.

[leanoracat]

Pierre,as the original poster, I don't feel that I have a lack of imagination. I'm just interested, as a health professional and a mother, in the way that health visitors seem to vary so much, and that it seems to be a lottery whether you get advice that is a) evidence based and b) recent. I ended the post with 'Discuss' because I wanted to hear about good experiences as well as bad. Because of the experiences I have heard on here, I am considering retraining as a health visitor at some point, because I believe in up-to-date, evidence based practice, and that it should be available to every mother, not just those lucky enough to win the GP practice lottery. But it helps to know what people consider a good, helpful, health visitor, and what they don't want in a health visitor.