Worried, AIBU? Police and ambulance

Clean clothes in piles and a fridge with fresh food in are signs of a normally functioning household. They would probably be pleased to see that.

Crikey. If they looked in my fridge the day before big shop day they’d not be saying “decent food” that’s for sure! But my DC is very well fed regardless it’s just that the only thing she eats from the fridge is cheddar cheese and carrots which we always have!

You are overthinking.
I'm really sorry your baby was so ill. Really glad he is recovering well.

In another family where the parents are struggling so much that the child is actually in danger, it might only be at a crisis point like that where the authorities have a chance to notice if something is going terribly wrong. There have been too many tragedies where a child has died and the newspapers give a huge list of events where someone should have noticed the child was in danger.

Your child was not in danger. Everything is ok. The checkup didn't do anyone any harm but if they do a spot check like this every time there's an opportunity, some children's lives will be saved. This seems like a good thing no?

Hi OP, if you called ambulance stating your young baby was unresponsive then ablativ ambulance service will have contacted police to attend as well, this sounds so awful but it will have been in case your sweet baby didn’t pull through, police have to attend ALL reports of sudden and unexpected deaths. And in these circumstances, foul play would need to be ruled out.
This probably sounds sickening to you but rest assured it’s for the right reasons, so things don’t slip through the net so to speak.
So glad your little one is feeling better.

The police attendance will be simply due to the categorisation of your ambulance call. I’m assuming this will have been sent to the ambulance crew as a Cat 1 call, based on what you said to the 999 operator, and must have gone down the route of a none breathing/potentially cardiac arrest situation when triaged over the phone.

In children, this will automatically trigger a police response for these incidents. This is an automatic response, and police will always be allocated when it triggers.

“I think now I've got time to reflect, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed as to why they came”

Because children and their welfare are everyone’s business, and the emergency services are called to lots of homes and it’s a really good way to just do spot checks, especially with babies not attending school, probably not attending nursery, with no way of communicating to anyone, it’s definitely a good thing. I’ve been in so many houses with official type people, and not once was untidiness flagged other than a general ‘bit untidy’ comment after the event, made to each other and not recorded. Things like no food, rotten food, toilet filled with faeces (and no report made), drugs lying around, dirty pets, unsuitable living conditions for children etc, these are the things they’re looking for.

I think I'd find it more odd if someone had two young children, had an ambulance out to one of them and the house was immaculate!

Hope your son is ok now x

When you have a normal family life, you may not realise the difference between messy because small children and illness and ‘neglect/dangerous messy’.

As a foster carer I worked with families and saw baby photos. The police will have no trouble telling the difference.

That doesn’t mean that children are only abused in messy homes- of course not- but your mess is not what the police were looking for.

I watch a lot of ambulance/ police programmes and they always send the police if they think a baby/ child might potentially die which is what they would have thought could be a possibility if your baby was blue and unresponsive. Try not to worry they were just doing their job and sounds like they weren’t concerned at all

Social worker here 👋🏻

I promise you're fine. Please don't worry about washing. I have three baskets to go away. It's life. It means you're washing clothes.

I hope your little ones are feeling better x

It’s probably standard procedure given the horror stories we hear in the news.

I hope all is well with your baby.

Police can help ambulance to get faster to hospital if needed and be an extra set of hands. Don't worry about it. Hope your child is feeling better soon.

OP, please don’t feel judged. Child abuse can and does happen in really ‘nice’ families, with ‘good’ parents. You don’t have to have a posse smoking and drinking on a sofa in your front garden to be a ‘problem family’, so the police are hopefully thinking that they’ll randomly check anyone they can. Struggling families will benefit from being flagged early too, it benefits everyone, both individually and as a society.

I understand your feeling but I bet part of the shock is the fact your child was so ill you called an ambulance. Just that by itself will be a shock to you.

I hope your son is better now.

And don’t worry about your laundry 😊.

Trust me they won't judge over regular household mess. There have been some high profile child deaths recently as as result of abuse or neglect, it's possible that due to the symptoms your child has that it could overlap with something that could be more sinister and it was felt police needed to do a bit of a welfare check. People are always much more cautious for young babies, for obvious reasons.

You haven't done anything wrong, remember this isn't personal. There will be babies out there who have been harmed and the police are looking for them. This is a good thing.

I hope your baby is ok now