To feel very harassed by Health Visitor, refusing to give managers email address

After the nhs punished me for having a C-section, I thankfully got a normal HV. She was the only normal ethical medical person during the whole pregnancy. You seem to have got one that’s OTT, be careful with those people. They will use your child against you, play along.

Am amazed that people feel so harassed.
I had very little HV input.

After the newborn phase There were 2 main checks - at 8 months and 2 years. Only the 2 year check was cancelled due the service being too stretched.

As nanny state as it is, just pretend to go along with their check boxes. Don’t set off any red flags for them. They see this avoidant behaviour and it’s going to set them off.

Work with the woman, pretend to play along. Trust me, I know they can be a nightmare but there’s no way to fight the system here. They have it all tied up.

How ridiculous to have to engage with an 'irritating' service you don't want, just in order to not raise red flags and in order get them off your back!

@mamechange I had a baby not a bub. My issue with the hv service was that they appeared to view all mothers as part of the lowest common denominator, pretty much the sort of women who have bubs and hubbies and have their nails done. Not as mature, well educated, professional women.

It was excruciating.

Almost. Health Visitors are nurses or midwives who do a year-long post grad course. Band 6 is specialist nurse or deputy ward sister level. Senior aka the ward sister is band 7.

Yep. Absolutely. I opted out, with difficulty, 30 years ago.

It would be strange for a HV to harass someone IMO unless they are repeatedly trying to contact you because they have concerns.

Health visitors here work for the UHB not the council.

I'm always surprised when people say they're having problems opting out. When I was a HV I would have been delighted to have one less family on my caseload!

It was quite straightforward, as long as there were no safeguarding concerns, we just had to record the opt out in child health record and inform the GP.

Parents were told they could change their mind at any time.

By the way, am I allowed to opt out of the 12 month and 24 month health reviews? Are they HV-related too?

I felt very uncomfortable with my HV and went to the health centre and requested to be seen by someone else.

The next time I was seen was when DS was 12 months old and the lady in question was a Nursery Nurse. She was very judgemental and seemed ignorant - when my DS said 'boova' and pointed at the lights on the ceiling, I said that he comes up with his own words for things at the moment, rather than saying real words. It seemed obvious to me that it was a pre-verbal phase inlanguage development. She had a serious look on her face and said, 'oh no, do you correct him when he says that? You don't want him growing up not knowing the right words.'

WTH?

So I'm actually dreading DS's 24 month health review and wondered if I can opt out of it?

Oh that doesn't sound good. Can you try pretnding you aren't home? How annoying. My house is a tip at the best of times but with a 2 week old I'd run away before letting anyone in the door!

All Health Visitors are qualified registered nurses. Some Health Visitors are also qualified midwives. Health Visitors complete rigorous training and a degree. Most are also now nurse prescribers. Training includes all aspects of child health, family health, maternal health/maternal mental health, safeguarding, domestic abuse, drug/alcohol abuse, healthy lifestyles and healthy eating.

Health Visitors are paid at Band six, equivalent to a senior ward sister.

Meanwhile, back in the real world…..

No nothing as useful as that!

They come around to your house when your baby is about 2 weeks and tell you not to co sleep with them and shrug their shoulders when you ask for feeding advice but tell you breast is best. They may or may not remember to bring scales.

They fill out ages and stages questionnaires at certain points to measure your child's development. They often don't know what they are testing for beyond the tick box and tick no if the child won't demonstrate the skill to an abrupt stranger on demand. Nothing really happens with the information and they have no specific advice, only refer you to paediatrics if child scores abysmally low across multiple domains.

They generally just spout the information off the health service website and have no idea of why the advice is that way, the evidence or benefits or risks. Or worse, they spout their own rigid ideas about sleep training or spoiling children (!).

If you asked for advice they generally tell you to look at NHS website or ask your GP.

Again for the non-Uker's . Is a HV ( health visitor) kind of your version of a child health centre?
Ours , you take the baby to the centre. They organise groups of mothers ( whoever is keen ) that are born in the same month to meet up at the centre for 6 weeks then you all just keep meeting up together.
They also weigh bub when you visit and check out any concerns with feeding etc. Is that what you mean?

I'm still friends with a couple of mums from ny 30yo's mums group!

People who want to opt out of having a Health Visitor shouldn't be raising red flags unless there have already been other issues flagged previously. It is perfectly OK not to want to go with the system.

I opted out years ago, when it was unheard of and quite an issue to do so. I'd looked forward to having a Health Visitor as a support as it was my first baby and I was quite a new and nervous young mother with loads of questions. But the Health Visitor had an odd attitude, every question I asked she didn't answer but suggested something else instead, made me feel like a shit parent when actually I was doing absolutely fine. I came to fear and dread her visits and decided I just didn't want the hassle of dealing with her.

I discovered that no, you do not have to have a Health Visitor, it is a choice and you can opt out. I wrote letters to the local GP service and to the health authority stating quite clearly that I no longer required her services, that I wanted all Health Visitor visits to cease as per my right, and that I would not be answering the door to any such caller. I also stated that if they wished to check the progress of my baby or had any parenting concerns they could make a formal appointment via the surgery which of course we would comply with - I didn't want them to think I was a dodgy parent!

It worked, although they did try to offer me a change of HV before giving up. I think, rather than requesting opt outs and manager's email addresses, stop asking and just tell them firmly what is going to happen. Good luck.

People who arw determined to opt out of health visiting services raise all kinds of red flags and rightly so.
Ultimately the entire point of the service is to monitor the general health and development of your child and anyone so fixated on opting out of it has issues.
Yes some health visitors can be a bit irritating but you just ignore them, its very easy to hardly see them - in fact the easiest way to get them off your back is to engage with them!

Shouldnt be no… but that’s not real life is it?! It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

easier to just nod along with most of these visits unless something really untoward happens.

and you never know, it could pick up something that would have otherwise been missed

It doesn’t draw any unnecessary attention nor will it paint OP in a poor light, however HVs will often spout those lies to emotionally blackmail vulnerable people into agreeing to their bullying.

I e just had third baby when they initially contacted me I sent an email saying I didn't wish to you the service as didn't with my other children and would be in touch if I needed anything, there was no push back

It’s a big deal if she doesn’t want it. People go as it’s the norm and they often don’t realise it’s optional, when you’ve asked them to leave you alone, they should. Unless there is a safeguarding concern which there is not.

i had the same issue, constant harassment to bring my baby to be weighed when I had 5 kids under 6 to get too and from school and nursery and I knew my baby was doing fine because I could see her growing and hitting her milestones. One day she saw me getting in my car to pick up my older child and blocked me into my drive to tell me I had to go the next week or she would ‘have to lodge a concern’. In the end the practise manager gif involved and she was told to leave me alone.

Moreover, this is exactly the reason for so many, who don't wish to engage with the service.

Why would anybody want to engage with any service, that will rake them over the coals at the first opportunity? I remember quite the thread on this, a while back, where the OP's decision not to engage with them, triggered them to initiate further trouble for the OP. Why would you honestly not undersand that some people really wouldn't want anything to do with such a service? Especially when there is plenty of support and help available elsewhere?

The summary of the threads here, and word of mouth generally, is that they either make themselves a nuisance, or are utterly useless. Very few experiences in comparison, found them to be a godsend.

There are real families for concern out there. A parent who simply decides not to opt in, or indeed opt out, does not and should not cause concern by and unto, itself.

There are plenty of threads on Mumsnet alone, to suggest this isn't the case, and OP's experience is far from the first, and far from uncommon.

And that's just online. On Mumsnet.

That shouldn't be the case with an optional service - it's not optional if the decision can harm you in the future.

Lots of perfectly normal, good parents simply don't want health visitors. They raise their children perfectly fine. Plenty.

It's not a sign of nefarious behaviour, and making people believe that's how they will be viewed if they decide not to engage with the optional service, would mean it's not that optional at all. Because who would really decide to be viewed as suspect?

Most bad parents are hiding in plain sight.