To refuse to see a health visitor?

No. Mine was brilliant and extremely supportive. DD had a serious health issue that our health visitor had experience in and I can honestly say that I would have found life much more difficult without her support.

i think you will be judged for refusing. rightly or wrongly, it will say say on your notes
just go with the flow
you are unlikely to have many visits

Similar happened to me Hv was an hour late and came while I was on the 5 min school run, she called and I said I'd be home soon but she had other appointments and recorded that she hadn't been able to reach us due to our road being closed!
Absolute rubbish, our road was open and in use, I was using it. She was just running extremely late and covered her back.

HV are trained nurses. If you’re worried about “snooping” it’s clear you have something to hide. Just let them do their job.

But it is a threat - who are they going to report parents who don’t want their input to? If a parent tells a HV that they no longer want or need their services then all that should happen is a note be made on their records that family have declined support. Obviously it’s a different scenario if SS are involved or there are existing concerns about a family - I’m talking about your average family.

I found the team down here were useless; they hassled me almost daily by phone before we were even discharged from hospital about coming to the house to do hearing tests when we had no planned discharge date and wouldn’t accept that we didn’t know when we’d be discharged; did not seem to know that premature babies should have their development checks done based on their due date not their actual birth date, so told me there were issues because they didn’t reach their 6 week targets when they should have been 5 days old; that I was told I should not be taking my twins out of the house (despite the neonatal outreach team saying it was absolutely fine so long as I want going to see people who were obviously unwell) and should stay home just in case the HV wanted to come and visit - but they would never give a time when they would come beyond xx day sometime between 9-4 - so they expected us to stay in all day for them to come or worse, another HV would call me either the day before a booked appointment or on the day of an appointment, to change it because the person phoning wanted to come instead of our named HV.

When they did come to the house they would turn up with students without asking if we were happy for them to come; wanted to put their scales on a mat in the porch right by the front door to weigh the babies rather than go through to the kitchen and put the scales on the table or the floor away from unnecessary draughts! They tried telling me that the twins HAD to have a 3-4 month developmental check despite there being no check at that age on the schedule or in the red book.

That was the last straw and I told them to stop bothering us and that we were refusing to engage with their voluntary service any further!! The person we told tried saying she was going to report us for refusing medical care but, when challenged, couldn’t tell me who they were going to report me to or what medical care I was actually refusing - oh, and where we live, the HVs work for the council not health services and can’t arrange medical referrals they just tell you to call the GP surgery if you have any concerns!!

Thankfully for us, they did leave us alone after that and then Covid came along a few months later and HVs stopped all face to face contact; they sent out forms for 2-3 year checks but we put them in the recycling and heard nothing more; since moving to another area 2 1/2 years ago, we’ve not had any contact from the team in this area!

I didn’t find the initial visit when pregnant / when mine were newborn particularly useful. However, my DS had developmental delays (later diagnosed as ASD) and I rang them for help twice - once when I had concerns about him and felt like no one was listening to me, and once when we needed referrering on the ASD pathway. Both times the HV were just excellent, the first completely fought my corner and got him referred for checks even though he wasn’t at the required age, the second did the ASD referral promptly and was super supportive.

I think that if you’re an engaged, fairly well educated parent with a straight forward newborn, it does all feel a bit like jumping through a hoop. But when I actually needed their support my experience was so so positive.

I had an appointment for my health visitor to come out and I called and explained to her after I got the appointment letter that I would only have half an hour at that time before I had to leave and take dh to work.

I was happy to reschedule but she said no that was fine and she wouldn't need that long but turned up half an hour late as we were walking out the door.
I explained we couldn't hang around now or dh would be late and she apologised explaining that there was two roads with similar names and she had been to the other road by mistake and no one was home (think something road west/ something road south on the other end of town.

She then went back and reported that she had been to our house and got no reply and that when she had rung us we had refused to let her in obviously in a bid to save face and not report that she has got lost and gone somewhere else.

We had to then explain ourselves to Hv admin who called for an explanation and it was obvious she didn't believe us for one moment. We rescheduled and a different Hv came.
I'm also aware that these are professionals taken at face value in important social services cases so it's quite worrisome that they are able to just bend and twist the truth to suit the situation and make the other side the bad people to cover their backside.

I've got 4 dc so had 4 different HV.

First one - useless. Absolutely pointless. Lovely person, but gave me dangerous advice and that was that.
Second one I can't remember. She clearly left an impression.
Third one arrived 2 hours early and said my house was cluttered because I was assembling some baby furniture, so there was things on the floor like the box and instructions as I put it together. Bizarrely I had sent dp a picture of what I was doing and then took another once I'd finished building it. So I had pictures my home was not cluttered it was just she was stupidly early and caught me mid task. She was actually very rude about my house even though besides the work space I'd made on the floor, everything else was fine.
I sent the pictures in an email to my local clinic and explained how uncomfortable she made me feel about my "cluttered" home and they called me back to apologise and told me she was agency HV and they'd had similar complaints from distressed new mums. I then opted out of more visits.
The latest one was lovely, my dd had been very unwell and we'd been in hospital for wee bit and she was just lovely to us.

Definitely not all health visitors are created equally.

It’s a shame if you’ve previously had a bad experience. But it’s a lottery who you get, I have experienced some awful midwives, GP’s, nurses etc but I wouldn’t refuse to see another one again and tar them all with the same brush. Personally I’d meet them, ask what they can support with and see how you get along. You may not need feel you need a HV and that is entirely your choice. Should circumstances change in the future and you do need additional support there are some very good ones out there.

It’s not a threat, this is literally the process they have to follow if you opt out

Its such a shame so many have had bad experiences. I really like mine and feel she is here to support us. She sends texts to check in with how we are doing, was helpful when I had mastitis and is generally very encouraging. She also has loads of tips for how to make things easier. We are lucky with our provision locally

If you don't want to see them though then that's your call!

HV service is not opt in it’s automatically offered to all families. What they don’t tell parents/propsective parents, is that it’s not a mandatory service but voluntary and some HVs will even use threats of reporting the parents who decline their services to maintain contact with a family who have expressed their wish to stop having their input.

There are 2 early week checks, hardly snooping. Weird leap.

I found them to be absolutely crap and actually downright negligent with my second. I stopped seeing them after a terrible experience. Nobody ever questioned why I refused the development checks etc.

It’s not designed to be an opt in service

@RosesAndHellebores I think that @Strictlymad meant GP as in "GrandParent" not Doctor.

@strictlymad I wasn't in a fog and my brain was sharp. Even if I was in a fog that didn't excuse my health visitor speaking to me as though I was potentially a twit. I'm glad to hear it's acknowledged that GPs can be twits. Some of the ones I've met are, on a regular basis, including the men . The one who told me it would do me good to go for a run in relation to my osteoporosis certainly was. I pointed to the boot and crutches! Also, the risk of tripping with severe osteoporosis is pretty dangerous for a dyspraxic like me :). I don't think he'd just had a baby either!

its Not about being a detention human being and no being thick, it’s about the highly stressful and sleep deprived new born days where we are all in a fog and might need a hand. The egg story I spoke of was a gp, her mil said it would help him sleep and she was desperate for sleep.

But the over-riding factor is that legally it's an optional service. They are obliged to offer it but women aren't obliged to accept it. It's shocking that this information is not made readily available and women are made to feel coerced to receive it. Coercion in any other relationship is regarded with distate and is now against the law.

I think its a lottery as to whether you get a good HV, so yanbu for refusing.

The HV for my first DC was bonkers. Insisted I attended a sleep clinic to educate me on sleep training, because my 6 month old breastfed baby wasn't sleeping 12 hours through the night. She also criticised the fact that she wasn't eating 'three square meals' a day. Like I said, DD was 6 months old.

The HV for second DC (different location) however was brilliant, spotted my pnd and that of another mum just up the road from me. She introduced us, so we had the support of each other as well. That orher mum is one of my best friends nearly 7 years later and we both, to some extent, owe our lives and happiness to that HV.

Ah, my son had a cholesteatoma.

@Bey ok sorry - I inferred incorrectly

@Merryoldgoat I said the reason they look in a bedroom and that it's not to snoop I didn't say they did or didn't judge your home

@Bey because you said they don’t snoop or judge your home and some most certainly do.

Not sure why you @ me, i was just stating the reason why they want to look in a bedroom and that it's not to snoop.

I'm not disputing your experience with your health visitor.